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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



The Site of Old "JamesTowne; 
1607-1698. 



A Brief Historical and Topographical Sketch 



OF THE 



building, to enclose the foundations of the ancient churches, after tlu 
general design of "ye brick church <>j Ttn pre/- 

involve any alterafion of[ the tozver ruin. , 

Illustrated with Original Maps, Oiawings 
Photographs, 



Samuel H. Yonge. 



^'Redimvmn est cx velu.-.lo renoii 



Published kv 
Association for the Preservation oi^ Vik 
Richmond, Va., 1904. 



The Site of Old "JamesTowne,'^ 
1607-1698. 



A Brief Historical and Topographical Sketch 



OF THE 



First American Metropolis, 



Illustrated with Original Maps, Drawings and 
Photographs, 



Samuel H. Yonge. 



"■ Redivivuni est ex vetusto renovaiumy — Festus. 



Published by the 

Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. 

Richmond, Va., 1904. 



WM. ELLIS JONES, 
PRINTER, 

RICHMOND, VA. 



Y'5-c 



HiBHARYof COMGRESS 
I I wo Copies tUcuiveci 

1 NOV 7 iau4 

Gotiyi'igiu ciiii-y 




5LASS CL XAc. Not 

COPY B, I 



Copyright, 1903, 

by 

Samuel H. Yonge. 



All rights reserved. 



IN publishing this edition of "The Site of ' Olde James 
Towne, ' ' ' the Association for the Preservation of Virginia 
Antiquities desires to gratefully acknowledge its indebtedness to 
the author. 

Mr. Yonge's many services — as engineer, in preserving the 
island from the inroads of the river, and as an antiquary in 
bringing to light the buried remains of the old town, in giving 
its public buildings and homes, again, a local habitation and a 
name, and in writing its history — will ever connect his name 
with Jamestown. 

The Association tenders its grateful thanks to Mr. Yonge for 

his generous gift of all rights to this edition of his exceedingly 

valuable book. 

Mrs. Joseph Bryan, 

President A. P. V. A. 



ERRATA. 

Page 6, lines 2.<5 and 26, "Sir Francis VVyatt's first administration" 
should read " Sir Thomas Gates' term." 

Map of "James Citty," on John White plat, " 1643" should be " 1644." 

Index to map of "James Citty," reference 7, insert at beginning of 
line the words "Site of." 

Ditto, reference 12, change " 1643 " at end of line to " 1644." 

Page 15, line 7, change " erosion" to "rate." 

Page 16, line 6, change " 1643 " to " 1644." 

Page 18, line 10, change the comma after "vessels" to an apostrophe. 

Page 18, lines 28 and 29, bracket the phrase "during Sir Thomas 
Smith's administration." 

Page 42, line i, change "is" to "in." 

Page 70, line 24, change "petition" to "partition." 



The Site of Old "James Towne," 1607-1698, 



By SAMUEL H. YONGE. 



INTRODUCTION. 

IT was the author's privilege to have charge, under the direc- 
tion of the United States Engineer Department in 1900 and 
1901, of the work of protecting Jamestown Island from the en- 
croachments of James River. 

Before proceeding with the above work an attempt was made 
to learn the cause and extent of the encroachments. The for- 
mer was soon discovered to be abrasion by wave action, while 
the latter, on account of the available evidence being meager 
and uncertain, could not be satisfactorily determined. 

The abraded area at first appeared to be upwards of fifty acres, 
having its gi'eatest width, about three-eighths of a mile, at the 
northwest(:rn extremity of the island. . . 

While the protection work was under construction hew evi- 
dence offered, in the light of which the above area appeared too 
large. This led to making personal researches among all avail- 
able sources of information, which have occupied the leisure 
moments of a period of two years. 

The results of the above investigation, with regard to the site 
of the former town, presented in the accompanying monograph, 
are at variance with the statements of other modern writers. 

There are but two descriptions available of the island and 
town after the latter had passed beyond the transitional stage of 
a military post, by writers of the time having a personal knowl- 
edge of the localities; one by an anonymous writer in about 
1676, the other ten years later by the Rev. John Clayton. Both 
descriptions are. quite incomplete. Supplemented by informa- 
tion from other sources, however, they have considerable value, 
especially that by Mr. Clayton. 



4 THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE. 

In the description of the town by Mr. Richard Randolph, the 
antiquarian, published in 1849, in the Virginia Historical Reg- 
ister, Vol. II, pages 138 and 139, occurs the following: 

" I will only add that the great body of the town, which, how- 
ever, was never very large, was certainly west of the Old Steeple 
still visible, and is now entirely, or very nearly, submerged in 
the river. This is clearly proved by the old deeds for lots in the 
town recorded in the office of James City County Court, which 
call for bounds that are now under water, and more palpably, by 
vast numbers of broken bricks and other relics of building that 
may still be seen in the western bank at low tide." 

It is evident from the above quotation that Mr. Randolph was 
not aware of the fact now disclosed that after about 1623 the 
greater part of the village was east of the tower ruin. The 
reasons for his belief that almost the entire town was west of the 
ruin were probably the following: During about the last three 
and a half decades of the town's existence the public buildings, 
as will be shown in the following pages, were west of the tower, 
on which fact, no doubt, the tradition was founded that the 
whole town was in that neighborhood; and, as only the western 
bank of the island was subsequently attacked by the waves, and 
consequently the foundations of former buildings of that quarter 
alone were exposed to view by abrasion of the bank, the above 
tradition was apparently confirmed; further, after the last state 
house and other buildings were burned in 1698, the standing 
parts of buildings in the entire town were, in the course of time, 
obliterated by the town site being put under cultivation and the 
brick formerly composing the buildings being removed; and, 
finally, on account of the long interval — a century and a half — 
between the town's abandonment as the seat of government, by 
vv-nich its few inhabitants, composed principally of resident state 
officials and tavern keepers, were compelled to remove, and that 
of a revival of any very great interest in the town, the traditions 
depended on for fixing its position had become dim and defective. 

From what follows it appears that writers of later date than 
Mr. Randolph accepted and reflected his views, without proper 
investigation. 

According to Bishop Meade, in his Old Churches and Fa^nilies 



THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE. 5 

of Virginia, Vol. I, page iii, the town was situated between 
the existing tower ruin and the upper extremity of the island, 
its eastern end being a short distance (one hundred and fifty 
yards) above the ruin, which he places at about a mile below the 
northern end of the isthmus. He also states in effect that the 
part of the island above alluded to had been encroached on by 
the river, thereby implying that the greater part of the town site 
had been washed away, and that traces of the town were visible 
at low tide in front of the island bank, i. e., the western bank, 
which was the part abraded. 

From the brief description of the town by the late Edward 
Duffield Neill, D. D., contained on page 203, Virginia Carolo- 
rum, published in 1886, it would appear that he, too, believed 
it to have been at the western extremity of the island. He also 
states that the quarter called " the New Towne " had been de- 
stroyed by the encroachments of the river. 

Dr. John Fiske informs us in Virginia and Her Neighbors, 
Vol. II, page 120, published in 1896, that more than half of the 
town has ueen destroyed. 

Dr. Lyon Gardner Tyler, President of William and Mary 
College, in The Cradle of the Republic, pages ig and 40, places 
the town at the western end of the island, with the Back Street 
on a ridge which is referred to in the description of the island in 
the following pages as the third ridge. Since, as will be shown, 
Back Street was in the " New Towne," that part of the settle- 
ment, according to the above writer, must also have been on the 
third ridge. 

With the above array of testimony, emanating from such well- 
known authorities, it was natural to begin the investigation of 
the subject with the preconceived idea that the town had stood 
west of or above the old tower, and that the greater part of it 
had been engulfed by the river. 

As information regarding the extent and shape of the abrasion 
could not be obtained from historical works, recourse was had to 
the old records of patents for land at "James Citty " issued 
during the seventeenth century, from which principally it was 
learned that the town bordered not only the western shore of the 
island near its upper extremity, but also the adjacent southf?:n 
shore below for about an equal distance and had a total kiigth 



.6 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

along the river of about three-fourths of a mile. The patents 
also show that the quarter of the town referred to in them as the 
" New Towne " was of a permanent and not of an ephemeral 
character, and that for many years after its establishment, about 
1623, was the most important part of the corporation. The 
most notable events and incidents of the first two and last three 
decades of the town's history, however, occurred at and west of 
the church still marked by the tower ruin. 

It seems proper to call attention to the following most notice- 
able errors of statement made by recent writers: 

In The Cradle of the Republic, pages 53 and 54, a one-acre 
lot patented by William Sherwood in 1681, whereon had stood 
" the Country House," is located north of the lands owned by 
William Edwards, Robert Beverley and Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., 
which were above the church, and a lot which, in 1688, was 
owned by Henry Hartwell, is placed above Sherwood's lot. 
The Back Street, Sherwood's acre with the " Country House," 
and the Hartwell tract, all above referred to, are now found to 
have been situated east, instead of west of the church tower, 
and near the eastern end of the town, while the properties of 
Edwards, Beverley and Bacon were near its western end. The 
Hartwell tract was on the southern shore of the island, about 
five hundred yards below the tower, and formed part of the 
southern boundary of the Sherwood acre. 

In the description of the town about the time of Sir Francis 
Wyatt's first administration, given in Vol. II, page 529, Eco- 
nomic History of Virginia in the Seventeerith Century, by Philip 
Alexander Bruce, it is stated that a bridge was built to connect 
the island with the mainland. This clearly is a misapprehension, 
for there does not appear to be any record of such structure 
being built during the existence of "James Towne," nor until 
some time before the middle of the nineteenth century. Ac- 
cording to Bishop Meade the island was connected with the 
mainland by a causeway on the sire of the former isthmus about 
the middle of the eighteenth century. 

In constructing the chart of the town and its environs, the 
localities where a number of historic scenes were enacted, were 
fixed, also the locations, with greater or less exactness, of the 
grounds or dwellings of a number of the former residents, the 



THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE. 7 

sites of two of the town's three forts and of several of its pubHc 
buildings. 

There being no definite information available for determining 
the positions of the western bank of the head of the island dur- 
ing the Jamestown period, of the original paled town, also of 
the first fort and early graveyard, it was necessary to depend on 
reasonable conjecture. On account of not being based on data 
of a definite character, as are most of the other localities treated 
of, this part of the investigation is offered with a measure of dif- 
fidence, although the deductions made seem to be justified by 
circumstantial evidence. Unfortunately, there is nothing to 
show who owned the land around the church tower anterior to 
1683, where, according to this investigation, before the "New 
Towne " was established, the earliest town was situated. 

The positions of the third and fourth state houses, and the 
grounds of several persons conspicuous in the affairs of the 
colony towards the close of the town's career are, however, 
fixed in and near this older quarter of the town. 

A description of the town would be incomplete without some 
reference to its most interesting feature, the first Anglican church 
in America. Brief descriptions of the several church structures 
of "James Citty " parish, erected at "James Citty," are there- 
fore included. 

As the page of the Virginia Land Patent Records containing 
transcripts of two of the earliest patents, viz: to Sir George 
Yeardley, Knight, and Captain Roger Smith, are missing, it 
was necessary, for locating the tracts they represented, to depend 
on the meager information contained in the Patent Record In- 
dex, and the renditions of the missing transcripts as contained 
in the writings of other investigators, which are not very satis- 
factory. 

An appendix comprises the details, in as comprehensive form 
as possible, of the method of establishing the position of " the 
New Towne." The plats of several grants which have been 
located in "the New Towne" are omitted from the "Map of 
lames Citty," as by introducing them those of greater antiquity 
and interest would be covered, and confusion created in the dif- 
ferent lines. The parts of some of the plats which extend be- 
yond the limits of the town are also omitted. 



8 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

All dates are given according to Old Style. 

The author's effort has been ably seconded by Mr. Frank D. 
Beckham, of Prince William County, Va., who has devoted his 
leisure to the work, and rendered invaluable assistance. 

The artistically drawn map of "lames Citty," Va. , is the 
work of Mr. Otto Sonne, civil engineer, of Boston, Mass., 
whose attainments as a landscape engineer are well known. 

The occasion seems opportune for informing the reader that 
the credit of rescuing from oblivion and preserving some of the 
most important ancient landmarks of Virginia, including James- 
town, is entirely due to the Association for the Preservation of 
Virginia Antiquities. Organized and administered by ladies of 
the "Old Dominion," the association is not only arousing an 
ever-increasing interest in events of colonial days, which en- 
genders a spirit of true patriotism, but in spite of a slender ex- 
chequer, is achieving remarkable results in preserving historic 
landmarks. 

After exhausting all available sources of information about the 
town, it is found that a great deal is lacking to make a knowl- 
edge of the subject complete and satisfactory. This much, how- 
ever, is learned, that the town, even though measured by what 
would appear to be a standard of its time, was small, poor and 
insignificant. This fact invests the place with the deepest inter- 
est, when it is remembered that from such a small beginning in 
the wilderness has sprung what bids fair to become, if not so 
already, the greatest nation of the earth. 

The passing of a few years will complete the third century 
since the laying of the cornerstone of the nation's foundation. 
How striking the contrast between then and now, in the mode 
of living, in the knowledge of the sciences and the liberal arts, 
and in the supersedure of intolerance and blind superstition by 
freedom of conscience and enlightenment! 









» 







Si 



^'A-'^S?? 




Sketch 

of .-e^ 

lAMES CITTY ISLAND 
Scale 



y, 72 =/- 



V"^^^>^ 



77?.? vT/'/e' of O/d 'L/ames Tot^'r?^ 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 



INDEX TO "MAP OF lAMES CITTY, VA., 1607-1698." 

^ A — First ridge, " Block House Hill," belonging to John Bauld- 
win in 1656. 

— B — Second ridge, containing tracts of James, Bauldwin, Hamp- 

ton, et al. 

— C — Third ridge, on which stood the third and fourth state houses. 
-c-T D — Fourth ridge, on which the town was principally situated. 

a, a, a, a — ^Jetties constructed in 1895-96 to protect island bank. 
I — Probable western shore line of island, 1600-1700. 
2 — Present shore line of mainland. 
^3 — Bridge across Back River on road to Williamsburg. 
_4 — Lot of Philip Ludwell, Esq., in 1694, containing the ruins 

of three brick houses. 
— 5 — Third and fourth state houses, 1666 to 1698. 
-6 — "Country House," in 1694. 
7 — Building reputed to have been a powder magazine. 
8 — Site of brick fort constructed between 1670 and 1676. 
_9 — The lone cypress. 
10 — Approximate position of northerly line between Richard 

James and John Bauldwin in 1657. 
II — Approximate site of tract of Richard Saunders, 1644. 
12 — Approximate site of tract of Edward Challis, 1643. 
13 — Approximate site of tract of Radulph Spraggon, 1643. 
14 — Approximate site of tract of Geo. Gilbert, 1643. 
>-i5 — Suggested outline of original paled four-acre town. 
16 — Tract of Edward Chilton, Attorney-General, 1683. 
17 — Tract of Wm. Edwards, Sr. , 1690. 

18 — Piles of former bridge between island and mainland, con- 
structed during first half of nineteenth century. 
19 — Tract of John Howard, 1694. 
"^20 — Tract of Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., 1694. Contains foundation 

of chimney. 
^21 — Confederate fort constructed in 1861. 
^22 — Ancient tower ruin, inclosed part of old graveyard, and 

foundations of third, fourth and fifth churches. 
ji^23 — Probable site of triangular fort constructed 1607. 

24 — Probable site of "bridge" (wharf), constructed in 1611. 



MAP or"iAMES cittyC'va. ;3 f 
1O07 - i0q8. 

Compiled From 

M ANCIENT RECORDS 



^'^'^^ttii 




The Site of O/d 'i/ames Towne" /607-/693. 



Co/^yr-iffA^, /SO J.. Ay ~Sarr:ue/ H Yonge 



10 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

25 — Probable landing place of first settlers, May 14, 1607. 

26 — Approximate site of blockhouse, built by Captain Richard 

Stephens in 1624. 
27 — Confederate redoubt commanding Back River, constructed 

1861. 
28 — Ditch draining " Pitch and Tarr Swamp." 
29 — Boundary lines of tract belonging to the Association for the 

Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. 
30 — "The old state house" (approximate), used from about 

1630 to 1656, on one-acre tract, of which part was sold 

to Ludwell and Stegg in 1667. 
31 — Ruins of building on site of Ambler-Jacquelin messuage. 
32 — Tract of John Chew, 1624. 
33 — Tract of Captain Richard Stephens, 1623. 
34 — Tract of Captam Ralph Hamor, 1624, Secretary of State 

and chronicler. 
35 — Site of the turf fort. 
36 — Cross streets connecting "the way along the Maine River" 

and the Back Street. 
37 — Tract of George Menefy, 1624, member of the Council of 

State. 
38- — The " way along the Create river," or " Maine river." 
39 — ^Cart track "leading to Island House," in 1665. 
40 — Causeway over swamp formerly connecting part of island 

containing "the new towne " with the rest of the island. 
41 — One-acre tract bought by William Sherwood in 1681, "on 

which formerly stood the brick house formerly called the 

Country House," and later, probably Sherwood's resi- 
dence. 
42 — ^Jamestown island wharf 

43 — Probable site of tract of Richard Clarke, 1646. 
44 — The " main cart path." 
45 — "The old Create Road," in 1694. 
46 — Ancient graveyard. 

47 — Point where skeletons were exposed by bank caving in 1896. 
48 — Shore line of 1903. 
49 — Traces of house foundations. Probable site of Richard 

Lawrence's dwelling about 1676. 
N. B. Broken lines on map indicate approximate boundaries, etc. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 11 



DESCRIPTION OF JAMESTOWN ISLAND. 

JAMESTOWN Island, Virginia, is situated in James River, 
sixty-eight and three-fourths miles below the head of tide- 
water, at the foot of the Richmond rapids, and fifty-eight miles 
above the Virginia capes. 

No ancient charts of the island and town of the Jamestown 
period (1607-1698), have been discovered. "The Draughte 
by Roberte Tindall, of Virginia, Anno 1608," and "Chart of 
Virginia," sent to Philip III of Spain in the same year by Zu- 
niga to accompany the report of Francisco Maguel,* " the Irish- 
man," a spy in the service of Spain, and published in The 
Genesis of the United States, although possessing some merit as 
reconnoisance sketches, prove to be inaccurate on comparison 
with modern maps, and furnish information of but little value as 
to the shape of the island and the site of the town. 

The island, thus invariably designated in the old land patents, 
and so referred to in Ralph Hamor's Discourse, and other an- 
cient writings, is two and three-fourths miles long, with a width 
varying from about three hundred yards at its head to about one 
and one-fourth miles near its lower extremity. It was formerly 
connected at its upper extremity with the mainland by a narrow 
neck, which being at a much lower elevation than the island, 
constituted an isthmus only at ordinary tides. What appear to 
be traces of the isthmus are found at one to two feet below low 
tide, just west of the piling of an old trestle bridge, which for- 
merly connected the island with the mainland. The bridge was 
destroyed by a storm over fifty years ago. As compared with 
the neighboring mainland, the general elevation of the island is 
low. 

Adjoining the head of the island is a marsh, which is referred 
to in the old land patents as " belonging to the Back river." 

The head of the island is composed of three ridges and part 
of a fourth, marked on accompanying map A, B, C, D, having 
an easterly trend, and rising from about twelve to sixteeh feet 

* His name was probably either Francis McGill or Michael. 



12 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 

above low tide. Between the three uppermost ridges are narrow 
marshes or slashes. The slash between the first and second 
formerly connected with Back River only, but by the abrasion of 
the western shore of the island it would now connect James River 
with the Back River were it not for the recently constructed sea 
wall. Between the second and third ridges is a slash or branch 
of a larg-e swamp situated near the middle of the island and ex- 
tending easterly to the Back River. It drains into Spratley's 
Bay, and was anciently referred to as "the Pitch and Tarr 
Swamp." About two hundred yards inland from the western 
shore of the island the above slash becomes the boundary be- 
tween the second and fourth ridges. 

The boundary between the third and fourth ridges is a little 
valley, which, near the river bank is two to three feet above 
high tide. This valley, as will appear later, contained near its 
former river end a brick fort constructed towards the close of 
the seventeenth century. At the head of the fourth ridge the 
ground rises quite rapidly to an elevation of about ten feet, and 
for two small areas to fourteen feet above low tide, forming two 
knolls, one at the tower ruin and the other in the Confederate 
fort of i86r. The two knolls were probably "the two Mount- 
aines," on which Percy informs us, in his Discourse, " was sowne 
most of our Corne." The western extremities of the above 
ridges, as is shown below, prior to the last two centuries extended 
four or five hundred feet beyond the present island bank. 

Below the fourth ridge is a narrow slash, now partly filled 
with sand, another branch of the main swamp, in which there is 
a run anciently known as " Orchard Run," draining the swamp 
into the river (see map of "James Citty Island"). East of the 
last mentioned slash is a ridge, also having an easterly trend. 
East of the above ridge and extending to James River is a branch 
of a great marsh, referred to below. Next follows a series of 
seven low ridges, forming collectively what was anciently known 
as Goose Hill. The Goose Hill ridges are separated by slashes 
of the extensive marsh above referred to, lying north and east 
of them, named Goose Hill marsh. It is drained into James 
river by Passmore's or Paschmore's Creek. 

Goose Hill is a hill only in the same relative sense that the 



THE SITE OF OLD "jAMES TOWNE," 13 

two knolls where the English wheat was planted were mountains. 
The fourth ridge has a larger area of good soil above extreme 
high tide than the other ridges at the head of the island. The 
B.ick river, which is referred to in many of the old patents, 
forms the northern boundary of the island. Although its chan- 
nel is from seven to twenty-three feet deep, the depth on the bar 
in Spratley's Bay, into which it empties, is but four feet; ample, 
however, for the crossing of the "friggett," from which the 
landing in Back River near the head of the island was named, 
and of whose coming the town's people were apprised by a 
musical note, as the vessel passed " Pyping Point. "*^ 

Above the Back River was situated " Sandy Bay," having the 
isthmus for its western and " Powhatan Swamp" for its eastern 
boundary, and receiving on the north the flow of Powhatan 
Creek. Near the northwest shore of the bay, about a mile from 
"James Towne," was situated what is believed to have been 
the first American glass works, in which beads were manufac- 
tured for trading with the Indians. 

As will appear later on, the two branches of " Pitch and Tarr 
Swamp" above mentioned, were the upper and lower limits of 
the principal part of "James Citty." A line of stumps, visible 
at low tide, extending shoreward from a solitary cypress stand- 
ing two hundred and seventy feet from the recently constructed 
sea wall, probably indicates the former position of the head of 
the upper branch of the swamp, where, as will be shown further 
on, a tract of land was granted in 1696 to Lieutenant Edward 
Ross. 

The mean tidal range at Jamestown Island is but twenty-two 
inches. Great tides, however, rising to seven or eight feet 
above low water, are occasionally caused by gales from between 
south and east. Whenever the tide rose slightly above its nor- 
mal level, the isthmus was submerged. During great tides there 
is a flow from the river through the depression between the third 
and fourth ridges into the upper branch of the swamp. 

* The point was located by platting a patent to Richard James (Virginia 
Land Patent Records, Book III, p. 368). 



14 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 



ABRASION OF THE ISLAND. 

UNTIL 1901, the length of the western bank exposed to abras- 
ion was about a half mile. In the above year about half of the 
exposed bank was protected by the sea wall before mentioned. 
The shore of the mainland from a short distance above tTie island 
to the Chickahominy River, a distance of about six miles, is be- 
ing abraded, and there are unmistakable signs of this action 
being operative for a very long period in the past. There is 
very good evidence that this bank was being abraded by the 
waves as early as 1686. The above protecting shore originally 
formed a natural protection for the island headland, and by its 
recession the latter became exposed to wave action. 

It would hardly seem possible that the abrasion of the island 
was in progress as early as 1686, or even in 1696, as in the latter 
year a grant of land, situated on its western bank, contiguous 
to and below the upper branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp" 
was made to Lieutenant Edward Ross,* before alluded to. It 
seems probable that the island was not attacked by the river be- 
fore 1700. Under this assumption, therefore, the whole period 
of the island's abrasion to the time of its protection in 1901, 
would be two hundred and one years. Observation of the bank 
in recent years shows that its annual rate of recession has been 
about four feet. Prior to the extensive use of side wheel steamers 
on James River, probably about 1 860 , and when occasional strong 
winds between west and north were the sole destroying agents, 
the rate probably did not exceed two feet. Applying the above 
rates for forty years and one hundred and sixty-one years 
respectively, the total . width of the prism of abrasion would 
amount to about 482 feet. 

From the data contained in the following quotation from 
Amoenitates Graphicae, a magazine edited by Professor Louis 
Hue Girardin, in 1803, f "many yards of the palisades erected 
bv the first settlers are yet to be seen at a low tide standing at 

* Virginia Land Patent Records, Book IX, p. 49. 

t Foot note, page 8, Report of the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee at 
James Town (in 1807). 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 15 

least 150 to 200 paces from the present shore," it would appear 
that the annual rate of abrasion, assuming the pace at thirty- 
inches, was about twice that given above. Professor Girardin's 
description, however, shows that he was not accustomed to esti- 
mating distances, and his figures, therefore, do not appear to 
have any value. 

As the time when the abrasion began and its erosion from 
time to time are unknown, no reliable deduction can be made as 
to the exact position of the western shore of the island in the 
seventeenth century. 

From the Edward Ross patent, the direction of the shore for 
two hundred and fifteen feet, immediately below the head of the 
upper branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp," is learned to have 
then been about S. 3° W. (corrected for declination) or about 
the same as that of the present western shore at the sea wall. 

In 1 89 1, there still remained, about sixty yards above the 
Confederate fort, the lower part of the ancient headland, pro- 
jecting about thirty yards from the general line of the shore and 
forming a sharp point. The lower side of the point in the above 
year furnishes the general direction of the southern shore of the 
headland. 

In the account of the bi-centennary celebration at Jamestown 
Island in 1807, it is stated that the " Lady Washington," one 
of the visiting vessels, anchored " in a beautiful cove in the form 
of a crescent, which stretching on either side afforded a safe and 
expanded bason."* 

The point above mentioned, then projecting several hundred 
feet further westward than the present shore, undoubtedly formed 
the head of the cove. Its foot was about five-eighths of a mile 
below its head, and is marked by an old abandoned wharf which 
was in use in 1861. The part of the cove below the new wharf 
remains as it was in 1803. 

The description of a course in the survey notes of a patent to 
William Sherwood f "and by the same [Back River] to Sandy 
Bay, to a persimmon tree under Block House Hill, thence under 

* Report of the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee at James- To7jon, p. 7. 
t Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VII, p. 384, et seq. 



16 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

the said hill six chains to James River ^^^ shows that the head of 
the island at the southern end of the isthmus was about 200 feet 
wide. 

From patents issued to Alexander Stonar in 1637, and to 
Richard Sanders in 1644, ^o^ ^^'''d situated on the first ridge; to 
Edward Challis in 1643, to Radulph Spraggon in 1644, and to 
John Bauldwin in 1656,* on the second ridge, it would appear 
that the general direction of the western bank of the island at 
its upper extremity was approximately the same as it is to-day. 
On account of incomplete descriptions the true positions of the 
above tracts cannot be determined. As even their approximate 
locations give them some value, they are shown on the map. 
The Spraggon tract indicates approximately the position of part 
of " the way leading towards the mayne," near the head of the 
island. 

From the preceding data the shape of the headland during 
the "James Citty " period, as exhibited on the map, was deter- 
mined. 

Since the first settlement of the island by the English, prob- 
ably twenty acres at its western extremity have been lost by 
abrasion. The abraded area comprises principally parts of the 
uppermost three ridges, and a very small proportion of the 
fourth ridge. The tidal currents at Jamestown are too light to 
erode the clay of which the banks at the head of the island are 
formed. Wave action developed in the long reach of wide 
water extending in a northwesterly direction has been the de- 
stroying agent, the waves of every passing steam vessel contrib- 
uting to the work of destruction. 

From the observation of the height of storm waves at James- 
town Island, it seems evident that their abrading effect does not 
reach to greater depths than three or four feet below low water. 
The. one fathom curve on the map, therefore, is considerably 
west of the extreme outer limits of the western shore line during 
the "James Citty" period. 

* Va. Land Pat. Records, Book I, p. 466; Book II, pp. 11, 12; Book 
IV, p. 88. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." l7 



LANDING PLACE OF THE FIRST SETTLERS. 

THE trough of the channel ofif the head of the island has steep 
sides, and is from fifty to ninety feet deep. As it lies in a bed 
of dense, tough clay, the scouring effect of the light currents of 
the locality, continuing even for centuries, should be very slight. 
From the deposition of material worn from the island and the 
shore above, there has probably been a slight diminution of depth 
during the past three hundred years in the thalweg or deepest 
part of the channel, but little or none on its sides. The above 
remark is intended to apply particularly to the vicinity of James- 
town Island. At other localities on James River extensive bat- 
tures have formed under projecting points between the trough 
of the channel and the shores. 

The hydrographic contours off the western shore of the island 
show the channel gradually nearing that shore from above until 
it approaches to within about one hundred and seventy-five yards 
of it, about three hundred yards above the tower ruin (see con- 
tours on map). Below the ruin it gradually leaves the island 
and opposite the former site of the turf fort, hereinafter referred 
to, is about three hundred and fifty yards from the shore. The 
contours also exhibit a stretch of channel upwards of two hun- 
dred and fifty feet long at the point of divergence above the 
tower ruin, having its north side steeper than elsewhere in the 
above reach of river. 

According to the rate of abrasion above determined, the island 
extended to the part of the channel having the steep sides dur- 
ing the seventeenth century. 

According to Master George Percy's Discourse, the ships, at 
the first landing place of the settlers, were moored to trees 
standing on the river bank, contiguous to which the water depth 
was six fathoms. The modern contours of the channel, as has 
been pointed out, could not differ materially from those existing 
when the first settlement was made. The part of the side of the 
•channel, therefore, which is steepest, and to which the island 
bank formerly extended, is manifestly the spot where the settltrs 
debarked May 14, 1607, and of which Percy wrote, "where our 



18 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 

shippes doe lie so neere the shoare that they are moored to the 
Trees in six fathom water." 

The landing was well selected for convenience of discharging- 
the ships' cargoes and very few similarly as well-conditioned 
exist on James River. As Archer's Hope, on the mainland op- 
posite the lower end of the island, was regarded as a very desir- 
able location for the first settlement, and was rejected only on 
account of its shore being made inaccessible to Newport's vessels 
by shallow water the day before the island was selected, it is 
apparent that the ease of discharging the vessels, cargoes directly 
on the river bank outweighed many other far more important 
considerations in deciding on the abiding place of the settlers. 

LOCATION OF FIRST FORT AND TOWN. 

THE first fort, "which was triangle wise, having three Bul- 
warkes at every corner like a halfe Mooneandfoure or five 
pieces of Artillerie mounted in them," was completed June 15 — 
the 31st day after the first settlers disembarked.* As there is 
no information extant as to the site of the first fort, that detail 
will have to be arrived at inductively. It was not at the original 
landing place, for, from the letter of Sir Thomas Dale, of May 
25, 161 1, t " to the President and Counsell of the Companie of 
Adventurers and Planters in Virginia," it is learned that imme- 
diately after his arrival at James Towne to succeed Lord La 
Warre as deputy governor, "a bridge to land our goods safe 
and dry upon," i. e., a wharf, was constructed by Captain New- 
port and "his Mariners." The construction of this wharf is 
alluded to in the " Breife Declaration,"! as follows: 

"A framed Bridge was alsoe then erected, during Sir Thomas 
Smith's administration, which utterly decayed before the end of 
Sir Thomas Smith's government, that being the only bridge 
(any way soe to be called) that was ever in the country." 

From the above it is obvious that the water was too shallow 



* Percy's Discourse. 

t The Genesis of the United States, p. 488. 

X A Breife Declaration of the Plantation of Virginia, &c., McDonald 
Papers, Vo\. I, pp. 103-142. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 19 

for vessels to lie against the shore in front of the fort, which, 
therefore, as above stated, was not at the original landing-place. 
It was, however, probably not far distant, for if otherwise, the 
settlers, with their limited means of carriage, would have been 
at great labor in moving their equipment, stores and ordnance. 
A natural site for the fort would have been just east of the valley 
at the upper extremity of the fourth ridge. Thus situated, the 
guns of its north bastion would have swept the branch of the 
swamp below and of the vale above, while those of its east and 
west bastions would have commanded the river front and the 
channel approaching from below, as did the guns of its succes- 
sor, the Confederate fort of i86r. In the above described posi- 
tion the branch of the swamp between the second and fourth 
ridges would have afforded additional protection against the 
Indians. The third ridge was possibly strategically as favorable 
as the fourth, but its crest is two feet lower and its area above 
the level of great tides much smaller. It was, therefore, not as 
well adapted to the needs of the first settlers. 

In excavating earth in i86r, at the head of the fourth ridge 
near the Confederate fort for its construction, pieces of armor 
and weapons of the early "James Towne " period were found, 
a good indication that the fort of 1607 was located about as above 
described. From the shore in front of it a wharf only about 
two hundred feet long would have been required to reach water 
twelve feet deep. 

The parade ground where " the whole Company every Satur- 
day exercised, in the plaine by the west Bulwarke, prepared for 
that purpose" * * >i« "where sometimes more than an 
hundred Salvages would stand in an amazement to behold, how 
a fyle would batter a tree, where he [Captain John Smith] would 
make them a marke to shoot at,"* was on the plateau at the 
head of the fourth ridge between the western curtain of the tri- 
angular fort and the little valley. As shown on the map, it was 
three hundred feet long and upwards of one hundred feet wide. 

From the " Breife Declaration," it is learned that "After this 
first supplie" [January, 1608], "there were some few poore 
howses built, & entrance made in cleeringe of grounde to the 

* Works, Captain John Smith, p. 433. 

2 



20 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

quantitye of foure acres for the whole Collony, hunger & sick- 
ness not permittinge any great matters to be donne that yeare." 
It does not seem probable that the clearing, on account of its 
small area, was made for agricultural purposes, for while Captain 
John Smith was president, probably in the spring of 1609, or 
about a year after the clearing of the four acres was begun, thirty 
or forty acres of ground were worked and planted.''^ Whatever 
may have been the purpose for which the four acre tract was in- 
tended, it is evident from what follows that it, or some other 
tract of the same area, was subsequently surrounded by a stock- 
ade and formed the town. 

Further on in the same narrative by the ancient planters ap- 
pears the following: " Fortification against a foreign enemy there 
was none, only two or three peeces of ordinance mounted, & 
against a domestic [enemy] noe other but a pale inclosinge the 
Towne, to the quantitye of foure acres within which those build- 
ings that weare erected, could not in any man's judgement, 
neither did stand above five yeares & that not without continuall 
reparations." 

The part of the " Declaration " from which the above is ex- 
tracted is ambiguous and obscure, Henrico and James Towne 
being described, as it were, in the same breath. It would appear, 
however, from the context that the four acres were at the latter 
place, and this view is indirectly confirmed by Ralph Hamor, 
who, as appears from the following, gives the area of Henrico 
as seven acres; " and in the beginning of September, 161 1, he 
[Dale] set from lamestown, and in a day & a halfe, landed at a 
place where he purposed to seate & builde, where he had not 
bin ten dales before he had very strongly impaled seuen English 
Acres of ground for a towne. "f 

There are no data available giving the slightest clue as to the 
situation of the four acres. It is believed that they included the 
area of one acre covered by the first fort, because the second 
paragraph above quoted from the " Declaration " states that the 
paled town covered four acres. 

Shortly after Captain John Smith became president o.f the 
colony (September, 1608) the plan of the fort was reduced to 



* 3id, pp. 154, 47^- 

t A True Discourse of the present estate of Virginia, p. 29. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 21 

"a five-square form."* This is construed to apply to the form 
of the town, after it was enlarged as noted above. 

The safest, and, therefore, the most natural position for the 
three-acre addition, would have been adjoining the eastern bul- 
wark of the triangular fort. From its southern end the minia- 
ture town, fronting the river, probably extended east about one 
hundred yards, thence in a northerly direction to and along the 
eastern wall of the present cemetery, thence northwesterly by 
' ' the old Create Roade ' ' given as the eastern boundary of a 
tract granted John Howard in 1694,"}" ^"^ thence westerly by a 
line which subsequently formed the southern boundary of Rich- 
ard Lawrence's tract, and in the line of its prolongation about 
at the level of great tides — eight feet above low water — to the 
north bastion of the triangular fort, whose western and southern 
bulwarks completed the inclosure. These lines would make the 
fort "a five-square form" or pentagon. "The old Create 
Road," judging from its name, was of great antiquity. It was 
probably one of the first roads opened by the settlers, and passed 
along one of the paled sides of the early town, as above de- 
scribed. 

The original triangular fort must have been maintained for 
several years, as an inner stronghold of the paled town. Dur- 
ing Strachey's sojourn in the colony, from May, 1610, to the 
fall of 161 1, the principal buildings were situated within it. The 
stockade around the part of the town outside of the fort proper 
was probably kept up for some time after the massacre of 1622, 
until the settlement gained a sufficient foothold to make it un- 
necessary as a defence against the Indians. 

LOCATIONS OF BLOCK HOUSES. 

FOR preventing incursions of the Indians across the isthmus, 
Captain John Smith, in the Spring of 1609, " built a Block- 
house in the neck of our Isle." This was replaced by a similar 
structure about 1624. The latter is referred to in a patent to John 
Bauldwin in 1656, which locates it approximately. It appears, 



* Works, Captain John Smith, p. 433. 

t Va. Land Patent Records, Book VIII, p. 82. 



22 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

from the patent, that the later block house was near the earlier 
one. The ridge on which the block houses were placed, the 
first ridge, is referred to in the patents as Block House Hill. 
A " bank of earth not a flight shot long cast up thwart the neck 
of the peninsula " by Sir William Berkeley, in September, 1676, 
to oppose the entrance of Bacon's men to "James Citty"* must 
have been situated on the north side of Block House Hill at the 
southern end of the isthmus. 

There were also, according to Ralph Hamor, two block 
houses "to observe and watch least the Indians at anytime 
should swim over the back river and come into the Island." He 
does not, however, give their locations. 

DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN. 

^'^HE cluster of huts constituting the habitations of the first 
hundred settlers, enfolded in its chrysalis-like stockade, was 
hardly entitled to the appellation of town. The term city, given 
the collection of unpretentious brick buildings of a later day, 
was equally a misnomer. 

For the details of the first structures erected, as of most 
other matters pertaining to the early settlement. Captain John 
Smith is the principal authority. 

As the time of Newport's colony, immediately after its arrival 
in Virginia was occupied in exploring the country, building the 
stockade, and preparing a cargo for the return voyage of the 
ships, the building of quarters was neglected, and those erected 
were inadequate in number and afforded but imperfect shelter. 
The best of them were built of rails and roofed with marsh grass 
thatch covered with earth. f According to the " Breife Decla- 
ration," some of the settlers lived in holes in the ground, as is 
sometimes done on the western plains, where they are called 
" dug-outs." 

*The Beginning, Progress and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in 
"Virginia in the years 1675 and 1676, by T. M. — Force' s Historical Tracts, 
Vol. I, p. 21. 

t Works, Captain John Smith, p. 957. (The references m this mono- 
o-raph to " Works, Captain John Smith," are from Prof. Edward Arber's 
edition.) 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 23 

After Newport's departure, hot weather and general illness of 
the party supervenino^, the completing of the huts was prevented 
until the fall of 1607.* 

The first huts were destroyed by fire in January, 1608, and 
were not fully replaced until after Newport's departure for Eng-- 
land, in April of that year,t about which time the clearing of 
the four acres was begun. 

The huts which replaced those that were burned were more 
comfortable than the latter. Their sides were lined with Indian 
mats, and the roofs made of boards. J They were apparently 
without floors. Improvements were gradually made in hut 
construction by roofing with the bark of trees so as to shed 
water, probably in the same manner as half cylinder roofing 
tiles are used, and erecting " wide and large country chimnies," 
of wattles plastered with clay. § About a year later twenty ad- 
ditional houses were added, || and, when Captain Smith left the 
settlement in 1609, it had, according to his account, within the 
fort, then equipped with twenty-four guns of different calibers, 
of which, however, probably not over six were mounted in the 
bastions, besides the church and store house, forty or fifty of the 
above huts.° Dr. Simmonds states that there were fifty or sixty 
houses within the stockade, ^^ where also was situated the well, 
prior to digging which the settlers drank the slimy, brackish 
water of the river, thus bringing on serious enteric troubles. 
The well water, naturally enough, was filled with organic matter 
and was sometimes brackish. It was found in an unsanitary 
condition by Dale in 161 1, resulting probably from its proximity 
to the huts. Dale proposed, among other improvements to be 
made in the town, the digging of a. new well. In 1617 the new 
well was found to be polluted. ^^ 

The fort undoubtedly stood above the level of great tides, as 
otherwise. Captain John Smith or others would have referred in 
their writings to the discomforts arising from tidal inundations. 
Judging from the contours of the ground, at or adjoining the 



* Ibid, pp. 10, 96, 392. -\ Ibid, pp. 105, 409. 

Xlbid, pp. 502, 503. \Purchas His Fi/grinies, Lib. IX, p. 175: 

II Works, Captain John Smith, pp. 154, 471. 

° Ibid, p. 612. *\ Ibid', p. 486. 

^^ Works, Captain John Smith, p. 535. 



24 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 

site of the fort, its elevation was not less than seven or eight 
feet above low water.* 

According- to Strachey, whose writings show that he was well 
grounded in the humanities, although not so well versed in the 
science of numbers, the ground enclosed by the first fort had an 
area of a half-acre. The fort was a stockade about fourteen feet 
high, formed of trees set about four feet in the ground. Its 
south curtain or bulwark was one hundred and forty yards long 
and the other two sides one hundred yards each. It is inferred 
from each of the pales forming a load for two or three men, that 
they were eight to ten inches in diameter, f 

It is very improbable that the fort had any earthworks. It 
had three entrances or ports, one through each curtain or bul- 
wark, the principal one being through the south curtain. Within 
the stockade, facing each port, was a fieldpiece. 

The huts were arranged in rows parallel to the curtains with 
a street thirty to thirty-six feet wide intervening. Within the 
hollow triangle formed by the lines of huts, and having probably 
an area of about a half acre, were the guard house, the market 
place and the chapel "in length three score foote in breadth 
twenty-foure." J 

Dr. Simmonds gives the width of the streets between the lines 
of huts and the palisades at eight to ten yards. § 

In i6ir, Sir Thomas Dale erected a "munition-house," a 
powder-house, a fish-house, a shelter-shed for cattle and a stable, || 
and a few months later Sir Thomas Gates added a storehouse, 
covering a space of one hundred and twenty by forty feet and a 
number (not given) of log houses arranged in two rows, some 



*The depth of the well in the fort is given bj' Strachey in Piirchas 
His Pi/grimes at six or seven fathoms. This, evidently, is a misprint, 
and should read six or seven feet. The level of water in wells on the 
island follows that of the tides. The bottom of an ancient well on the 
third ridge is about i% feet below low tide. A proper depth for a well 
in the fort would probably have been 7 to 9)^ feet, depending on the 
elevation of the ground. 

t Works, Captain John Smith, p. 612. 

1 Purchas His Pilgrinies, Zz^^i^r IX, pp. 1752, 1753. 

I Works, Captain John Smith, p. 407. 

II The Genesis of the United States, p. 492. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 25 

of which were two stones and a garret high. About this time 
also the stockade was repaired and a new gun platform placed at 
its western end, presumably at the point of the triangular fort 
known as the west bastion.* It is apparent that if all of the 
different structures above enumerated were situated within the 
triangular fort, whose area was a small fraction more than one 
acre, there would have remained little or no room for the three 
or four hundred people who sometimes constituted the popula- 
tion. Some of the buildings, therefore, were outside of the 
triangle and in other parts of the paled town. The place must, 
now have presented an appearance similar to that of some of our 
earlier frontier posts. 

On account of unseasoned or sappy timber being used for the 
log houses, but five or si.x remained serviceable in iGiy.f No 
improvements, however, appear to have been made after Gates' 
second administration in 1614, or new buildings added except 
the wooden church last referred to, whose dimensions were fifty 
by twenty feet, until Sir George Yeardley's arrival in 1619. 

In 1623 there were but twenty-two dwellings at " James Citty," 
a seemingly insufficient number to accommodate the new set- 
tlers who, on their way to the interior, for several years, had 
been arriving in large numbers. The massacre of 1622 and un- 
favorable reports of the colony published by several unprincipled 
partisans of Sir Thomas Smythe, treasurer or governor of the 
London Company, to create prejudice against and destroy con- 
fidence in the Virginia enterprise under the administrations of 
Sir Edwin Sandys, Smythe' s successor, and of the Earl of South- 
ampton, who succeeded Sandys, checked the growth of the 
colony and, to some extent, therefore, that of the town. 

For many years the place apparently made little or no progress. 
On February 20, 1636, a law was enacted by the Grand Assem- 
bly J providing for a grant of a house lot and garden plot to 
every settler that would build thereon within six months. A 
similar law was made in 1638, and, as a result, twelve dwellings 
and stores, including the first brick house of the colony, sixteen 

*Hamor's True Discourse, p. 33. 

t Works, Captain John Smith, p. 535. 

X Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689. 



26 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 

by twenty-four feet in plan, were erected. Within the year fol- 
lowing all the lots along the town's water front were patented.^ 

The patent records contain eight land grants made within the 
town precincts between 1636 and 1642.1 In the latter year Sir 
William Berkeley, the new governor, arrived bearing instruc- 
tions from the Royal government to rebuild the town with brick 
houses. Accordingto the instructions every person who, "within 
a convenient time," should erect in any town of tl\e colony a 
brick dwelling sixteen by twenty-four feet with a cellar would be 
granted five hundred acres of land. The colonial government 
was also empowered, in view of the existing town having proved 
unhealthy, to build a new one elsewhere, which, however, should 
bear the original name of "James Towne.";|; In March, 1643, 
the Grand Assembly framed a statute, according to which builders 
of houses on deserted lots in "James Citty" would acquire a 
title to the lot built on, provided the back quit rents were paid.§ 

The patent transcripts contain twelve issues for town lots be- 
tween 1642 and 1662. At the close of the interregnum in 1661, 
during Sir William Berkeley's second term as governor of Vir- 
ginia, he was again urged by the King to take steps to enlarge 
the town by erecting more houses, the monarch assuring him 
that ' ' Wee will take it very well at their hands if they [the mem- 
bers of the colonial council] will each of them build one or more 
houses there." II 

In deference to the King's wish, an act was passed at the next 
ensuing session of the Assembly, inhibiting the building of any 
more wooden houses, and prescribing that there should be 
erected at "James Citty" thirty-two brick houses, forty by 
twenty feet in plan inside, apparently two stories high, and 



* McDonald Papers, Vol. I, pp. 247-249. Governor Harvey and 
Council to Privy Council, January, 1639. 

t Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, pp. 466, 587, 588, 595, £98, 
689, 730. Reference is made hereinafter to the incompleteness of the 
records. 

t Instructions to Governor Berkeley and Council, August, 1641. — 
McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 383. 

\ Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 252. 

II Instructions to Governor Berkeley, McDonald Papers, Vol. i, p. 414. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 27 

roofed with slate or tile.* Each of the seventeen counties was 
required to build, at its expense, one of the houses. The above 
attempt to force the town's growth was a failure, for in 1676, at 
the outbreak of Bacon's Rebellion, the community held but six- 
teen or eighteen dwellings, most "as is the church built of brick, 
faire and large; and in them a dozen families (for all the houses 
are not inhabited) getting their liveings by keeping of ordinaries 
at extreordinary rates, "t The unoccupied houses were some 
of those which had been ordered built by statute of December, 
1662, but had never been completed,;}; most probably on account 
of the poverty of their builders. 

In 167G the entire town was destroyed by Bacon as a strategic 
measure. 

In 1682, Lord Culpeper, the governor, received instructions 
from England to rebuild, the royal good will being again tend- 
ered, as in the message to Berkeley of 1661, to the members of 
the council and prominent citizens of the town who should initi- 
ate the work. Two good houses had at that time been erected 
by Colonel Bacon the elder, and others were either under con- 
struction or proposed. Lord Culpeper' s reply to the King's mes- 
sage contains a reason for the town's lack of recuperative power. 
" I have given all encouragement possible for the rebuilding of 
James Citty, The Gen-erall Courts, publick offices, and meetings 
of Assemblies having been alwayes kept there, And Greenspring 
(the nearest convenient habitation) My place of Residence. But 
there being an Apprehension in many persons that there are 
other places in the Country more proper for a Metropolis, And 
that the aforesaid Act for Building Townes, would make one in 
the most naturall place, there hath not till now of late been Any 
Great Advance therein. As to the proposall of Building Houses 
by those of the Councell and the cheefe Inhabitants, It hath 
been once attempted in vaine, nothing but profitt and advantage 
can doe it, and then there will be noe need of Anything else. "§ 

In 1697 the number of houses in the town was reported to be 
twenty or thirty. 

* Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 172. 

t Burwell MS., Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I, Bacons Proseedings. 

J British State Papers, Colonial, No. 62. 

I McDo7iald Papers, Vol. VI, p. 165. 



28 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 

In 1698, the royal mandate to build up the town was reiterated 
to Governor Nicholson, but before any steps could be taken to 
act on it, a fire occurred, by which the statehouse and prison,* 
and probably all other buildings on the third ridge, were de- 
stroyed. 

At a session of the General Assembly held in April, 1699, acts 
were passed for establishing the city of Williamsburg (about 
eight miles north-east of "James Towne"), for erecting a State- 
house there and providing for raising funds to defray its cost 
by imposing an import tax on slaves, also on servants not born 
in England or Wales, brought to the colony. f 

After the fire of 1698, "James Citty " waned. One patent 
for a small tract in the town, issued in October, 1699, J is of re- 
cord, but no new houses are known to have been erected. 
Twenty-three years later, the place comprised nothing but 
"Abundance of Brick Rubbish, and three or four good inhabited 
Houses, tho' the Parish is of pretty large Extent, but less than 
others. "§ In 1807, there were two dwellings on the island, the 
Jacquelin- Ambler and Travis mansions, and in 1861, but one, 
the former, which was burned during the ensuing war. The 
above house was afterwards rebuilt, and again burned in 1896. 
The ground on which it formerly stood was probably owned by 
Sir Francis Wyatt in 1623. At some time prior to 1690 it be- 
longed to John Page, clerk of the Assembly, from whom it was 
purchased by William Sherwood. || 

POPULATION OF THE TOWN AND COLONY. 

DURING the first eighteen years of the settling of Virginia 
there were great fluctuations in the population of the colony, 
and also of "James Forte" and "James Towne." Each influx 
of new life was followed by a more or less rapid ebbing of the 
human tide, resulting from the ravages of disease and the toma- 
hawk. During the first eight months the fort's population 

*The Present State of Virginia, by Hugh Jones, A. M., p. 25. 

'\Hening's Statutes, Vol. Ill, pp. 193 and 197. 

t Va. Land Pat. Records, Book IX, p. 232. 

? The Present State of Virgitiia, b\' Hugh Jones, A. M., p. 25. 

II Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VIII, p. 384. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 29 

dwindled from one hundred and five to a litde band of thirty- 
eight persons, the smallest number that the colony ever held. 
By the arrival of several reinforcements during the twenty-one 
months following (January, i6oS. to October, 1609), its popu- 
lation was increased to upwards of 490.'^' Within eight months 
the above number was reduced by death from starvation, cli- 
matic illness, and pestilence, to about sixty persons. Fresh 
accessions under Gates and La Warre in June, 1610, brought 
the number up to about 350, most of whom were quartered in 
the town. In a few months this number was diminished by death 
to about 200. Thus far about 900 persons had been sent from 
England to Virginia, of whom about 700 had perished. 

Between December, 1606, and November, 1619, it is estimated 
that 2,540 persons emigrated to Virginia, of whom 1,640 died.f 
Between the latter date and February, 1625, 4,749 colonists 
came to Virginia and 4,400 died, thus making a total mortality 
in about nineteen years of 6,040, out of 7, 289. J 

According to John Wroth, a member of the Warwick faction, 
up to 1623, 3,570 out of 5,270 colonists died in the four years 
ending with 1622. § Captain Nathaniel Buder represented that 
up to the winter of 1622, the mortality was 8,000 out of 10,000, || 
while the resident colonists declared that up to the winter of 
1622 not over 6,000 were sent to Virginia, of whom 2,500 were 
living.^ Captain John Smith says: " neere 7,000 people " out 
of 8,500 had died to 1627.° 

As pointed out above, there were in June, 1610, about 350 
people at "James Towne." In 1616, there were on the entire 
island fifty persons, under Lieutenant Sharpe. It is stated that 
in the following year there were 400 persons at "James Towne," 
of whom, on account of sickness, only one-half were effective." 

* Works, Captain John Smith, p. 486. The numbers reported brought 
by different vessels indicate a less' number. 
t The First Republic in America, pp. 285, 329. 
tlbid, p. 612. 

I The Genesis of the United States, p. 1064. 

II 77^1? Unmasked Face. 

*\\ The Denial of Nathaniel Butler's ''The TJninasked Face,'' NeilFs 
History of the Va. Company, p. 405. 
° Works, Captain John Smith, p. 884. ^^Ibid, p. 536. 



30 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 

A census taken in 1623 gives the population of the town at 
183. It also shows that during the preceding year, eighty-nine 
had died in the town.* 

Although "James Citty " had now assumed more of the pro- 
portions of a town, it possessed none of the attractions or allure- 
ments which would demand expenditures of money, and probably 
but few opportunities for making it by trade. The simple, prim- 
itive tastes of the settlers, coupled with their general poverty, 
made shops superfluous. In 1625 the town had one merchant's 
store, t An attempt was made in 1649 to hold a bi-weekly mar- 
ket. This was a complete failure and, six years later, the act 
providing for the market was repealed. | 

Nearly all who came to the colony, except the officials, had 
all to make and little to spend. The population of the town, 
therefore, did not keep pace with that of the colony, in which, 
after about the first twenty-five years, it slowly but steadily in- 
creased. In 1634 it amounted to 5,ii9;§ in 1649, to i5,ooo;|| 
in 1665, to 40,000; ^[ in 1681, to 70,000 or 80,000;° and in 1715 
to 95,000." The function of the town was that of furnishing a 
place for the assembling of the legislature and for holding courts. 
Its permanent population, after about 1623, comprised only a 
part of the bureaucracy of the colony, and tavern keepers, with 
their respective families, amounting possibly to one hundred 
persons, which approximate number was periodically doubled by 
the meetings of the assembly and court. 



* McDonald Papers, Vol. I. 

t T/ie First Republic in Auierica, p. 623. 

X Hetiing's Statutes, Vol. I, pp. 362, 397. 

§ State Papers, Colonial, Vol. 8, No. 65, 1634, De Jarnette Papers. 

II Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. II. A Perfect Description of Vir- 
gijiia, p. I. 

^Winder Papers, Vol. I, p. 187. 

°Sainsbury Abstracts, Vol. i68r-i685, par. 275. Of this number 76 
per cent, were freemen. 

'^^ Chalmer's American Colonies, Vol. II, p. 7. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 31 

SUFFERINGS OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 

THE settlement near the head of Jamestown Island was at 
first called "James Forte" and "James To wne," usually the 
latter. After the fort was enlarged in 1608, and until about 
1620, or shortly after the close of Sir Thomas Smythe's admin- 
istration as governor of the London Company, it was almost 
invariably referred to by the latter appellation. 

The sufiferings of the colonists during the above period have 
probably never been surpassed or even equalled in measure or 
degree in any other pioneer colony. Under the Smythe regime 
the colonists' greatest sufferings resulted from hunger. Hand 
in hand with famine stalked pestilence, yellow fever communicated 
by vessels bound for "James Towne " which had touched at 
the West Indies, and bubonic plague and cholera brought from 
London. Fevers and dysentery resulting from exposure, nox- 
ious exhalations from the surrounding marshes and from forest 
mould for the first time exposed to the heat of the summer sun, 
and impure water, did their share in decimating the colony. 
The remedies then in use doubtless increased the mortality, 
bringing fatal results to many who, without them, would have 
recovered. That the leaders did not succumb was no doubt 
largely due to nearly all being in the prime of manhood and inured 
to hardship through the campaigns against the Spaniards in the 
Netherlands, by which experience they had learned how to avert 
some of the bad effects of camp life. 

As the colonists were but meagerly supplied with provisions 
from England and raised but few food products, their labor be- 
ing principally employed in producing tobacco and other articles 
for export, for the benefit of the London Company, their sub- 
sistence during the first four or five years was derived principally 
from the Indian, either by force or barter. They were not per- 
mitted to engage in planting on their own account, except 
on condition of contributing a part of their crops and one 
month's services annually to the London Company. Their let- 
ters to and from England were intercepted and proffers of assist- 
ance to the company in behalf of individual colonists from their 
friends were declined, with the assurance that they were well 
provided for. None was allowed to leave Virginia, except by 



32 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

special permission, and it is narrated that a passport from the 
King for the return of a colonist to England was sewed in a 
garter to insure its delivery.''" 

The settlers were, to all purposes, in a state of servitude, from 
which, as a special favor, some were offered release on condition 
of working three years on Fort Charles. The abhorrence with 
which life in the colony was regarded is exemplified by a state- 
ment in a letter from the Spanish Ambassador in London to 
Philip III. of Spain, in December, 1616, that while two of three 
thieves under sentence of death availed themselves of the alter- 
native of going to Virginia, the third preferred hanging. f 

The climax of suffering was reached when on June 7, 16 10, 
the sixty survivors of four hundred and ninety settlers of but 
eight months before, broken in health and crushed in spirit, 
turned their backs on the odious town where tragedy had been 
almost continually enacted for three years. So deeply impressed 
by the abject misery of this remnant had been the members of 
the lately arrived party of Sir Thomas Gates that they had readily 
joined in the flight from suffering and horrors which they be- 
lieved would be their lot if they tarried at the ill-favored spot. 
This, the climax of the critical period of the colony, was safely 
passed when the astute La Warre, newly appointed governor of 
Virginia, being apprised on his arrival from England at Point 
Comfort of the intended abandonment of the colony, thwarted 
the plan by despatching Captain Brewster ahead of his fleet to 
meet the forlorn party, and turned it back to the deserted post, 
where the tragedy was renewed for another anel longer term of 
years. 

An amelioration of the colonists' condition was brought about 
by the election in 1619, of Sir Edwin Sandys, as successor to 
Sir Thomas Smythe, to the office of treasurer or governor of 
the London Company. Even before the new administration was 
elected, the former policy of the company, which had been act- 
uated by commercial avarice, was abandoned, through the in- 
fluence of the Sandys party, which inaugurated in its stead one 
inspired by broad and liberal views. The ' ' most severe and 

*^4 Brief e Dechijxition, etc., McDonald Papers, Vol. 1, pp. 103-142. , 
t The Genesis of the United States, p. 900. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 33 

cruel" "Lavves, Diuine, Morall and Martiall," were repealed, 
and courts of justice established after the manner of those of 
the mother country; the "ancient planters" who had arrived 
before the time of Dale were released from further service to the 
colony, land titles were confirmed and the individual ownership 
of land introduced by patent. The colony was also allowed to 
elect its own legislative body. The last mentioned privilege, 
however, although enjoyed in 1619, does not appear to have 
been officially promulgated until the publication of the written 
constitution in 1621,''^ under the administration of Sir Henry 
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, who had succeeded Sir 
Edwin Sandys in 1620. These reforms and privileges stimulated 
the colony to renewed efforts and led to the development of its 
principal town. 

"THE NEW TO^A^NE." 

THE new policy of the company was carried out by Sir George 
Yeardley, whose methods were in striking contrast with 
those of his predecessor, the unprincipled Argall. This marked 
the beginning of a new era in the colony, of which a feature was 
"the New Towne," as it was styled in the patents to its resi- 
dents, with new and better constructed habitations. 

One of the thoroughfares of "the New Towne" is referred 
to in the patents as " the Back Street." As will appear below, 
" the New Towne " at first comprised the most important part 
of the corporation, and, as a matter of fact, seems to have been 
the first substantially built town. Prior to its establishment, 
land appears not to have been perfectly vested in the settlers. 
With the beginning of this era and ever after, the place is re- 
ferred to in the surviving patent transcripts, with the single ex- 
ception of one of 1664, in which it is called "James Towne," 
as "James Citty." It is also invariably so referred to in the 
reports of the meetings of the General or Grand Assembly. The 
island and containing county were named from the town, the 
county still bearing the name of James City. 

Although the official name of the place was "James Citty," 
it was general!}' referred to in official correspondence as "James 
Towne.'' 



* Hening^s Statutes, Vol. I, pp. rro, iir, 112. 



34 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 

As it is the general opinion that the greater part of the ancient 
town site has been washed away, it will be a pleasant surprise 
to many to learn that this view is erroneous. The proof of the 
error is furnished by the old "James Citty " patent records, 
which, when properly interpreted, show that but a small propor- 
tion of the town site has been destroyed, and that the quarter 
called "the New Towne" has not been encroached on to any 
appreciable extent by the river. References in some of the 
patents. to branches of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp," and to other 
topographical features which are probably almost as clearly de- 
fined as they were two or three centuries ago, have made it pos- 
sible to locate the site of "the New Towne," and the greater 
part of the west end, or old town quarter. Former students of 
the records have either abandoned them with the conviction 
that they were too indefinite or obscure for solution, or miscon- 
struing them, evolved incoherent conclusions which have misled 
and confused the reader: The transcripts pertaining to ' ' James 
Citty," which are valued principally as old curios, form a laby- 
rinth, in treading which for a long time, a step in any direction 
led seemingly to hopeless perplexities, and only after repeated 
and long continued efforts to interpret them, was the "open 
sesame" found, and a sufficient number linked together to fur- 
nish a chart of the ancient town. The period they cover ex- 
tends from 1619 to 1699. The pages of the record containing 
two of the earliest and most interesting grants, viz: to Governor 
Sir George Yeardley, Knt., and Captain Roger Smith, as stated 
in the introduction, are missing. This will be generally re- 
gretted, as possibly on account of their not having been correctly 
deciphered, the renditions contained in historical publications 
are not clear. 

The method employed in evolving the chart from the patents, 
although apparently not complicated, was slow, tedious, and re- 
plete with failures. Briefly stated, it consisted of finding and 
uniting plats of different tracts found to have common bound- 
aries. The topography and objects referred to in the patents 
were platted simultaneously with the boundaries of the land 
they described. 

The incompleteness of the existing records is made apparent 
by the references in several transcripts to patents which are not 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 35 

of record. Those missing were no doubt improperly entered 
"in books labelled Bonds, Commissions, Depositions," &c.,* 
which no longer exist. Although the records are incomplete, 
and the descriptions in some of those available contain inaccu- 
racies which required considerable study to correct, while those 
in others are too meagre or vague to afford any clue to the land's 
position, they, in many cases, not only furnish the metes and 
bounds of the area patented, but also a variety of other inform- 
ation, e. g., the ancient names of different localities of the town 
and island, the positions and directions of the river-bank and 
highways, the sites of the second fort, called "the turf fort," 
"the Back Street," in "the New Towne," "the Country 
House," burned, probably, about 1660, the several statehouse 
buildings, dwellings of some of the later residents, and other 
obiects now of great interest. A few of the earlier patents re- 
cord the vocation and social position of the patentee and even 
the name of the ship in which he came to Virginia, and the year 
of arrival. 

The majority of the plats based on the patents, and repre- 
sented on the map by solid lines, probably possess about the 
same degree of accuracy as the work of the average class of 
compass surveys of to-day. Between 1623 and 1644 only the 
general directions of land lines are given in the descriptions. 
About the latter year the surveyors were apparently less inexact 
and recorded azimuths to the nearest quarter point, or about 
2^ degrees. In a patent of 1656 the azimuths of several sides 
are given to }i point. 

The direction of the Back Street in the Pott patent of 1624 is 
recorded as " eastward," The azimuth of the street is definitely 
learned from the Phips patent, which included the Pott patent, 
and was issued thirty-two years later, to have been E. S. E. }^ S. 

Until about 1667 the azimuths of lines were expressed in the 
same terms as are employed by mariners in boxing the com- 
pass. Beginning with the above year, azimuths are given in 
degrees. By 1683, more careful work appears to have been the 
rule, and azimuths are recorded to one-tburth of a degree. It 
would appear from the foregoing that prior to about 1667 some 

*He}iing's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 509. 



36 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

form of the mariner's compass was used in making land surveys, 
and that about that year the circumferentor came into use. 

The consideration on account of which land was granted was 
always specified in the patent. During the first twenty years it 
was usually a reimbursement to the patentee of the cost of his 
own transportation and that of others to the colony, which he 
had defrayed. The portions of land are styled devidends"^^ and 
dividents, and were for fifty acres per capita. The grant was 
conditioned by the annual payment of a nominal sum of money 
(one shilling per 50 acres) or quantity of tobacco (two to five 
pounds), designated a fee rent. The fee was made payable in 
money or tobacco to the "Cape Merchant," as the treasurer 
was called, either at the feast of St. Michael, the Archangel, or 
at that of St. Thomas, the Apostle. In at least two of the 
"James Citty " patents the specified fee is a capon, "to his 
Majestie's use," payable "at the feast of St. Thomas the Apos- 
tle, "f A condition named in some patents between 1636 and 
1640 is that the patentee should erect a house within six months.;}; 

The " James Citty " patents usually describe the grant as be- 
ing a part of a dividend of fifty acres, or more, situated outside 
the liberties of the town. 

Several patents issued under Cromwell were subsequently con- 
firmed by being re-issued under Charles II. 

The transcripts of the patents are the sole remaining evidence 
authoritatively fixing the initial spot of the nation's history, as 
almost all other records, including those of the early convey- 
ances, were burned during the War between the States. 

The patents relating to "James Citty" are scattered through 
nine ponderous volumes of MSS. Book I, on account of its an- 
tiquity, is the most interesting of the series. As shown by his 
indorsement at the end of the book, the transcript was made by 
Edward Harrison in 1683, or nearly a century before the United 
States attained its independence. The handwriting is clear and 
uniform and to one familiar with the characters then employed, 
is readily deciphered. 



* This orthography is given in some of the earlier patents. 

t Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689, and Book IV, p. 475. 

J Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689, and Book IV, p. 475. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 37 

The abbreviation " y " for th in the and that does not appear 
in this book, which includes the issues up to and during a part 
of the year 1643. Its first occurrence is in Book VII, in the 
patent to Edward Chilton, of 1683. The lower case ancient 
script letter " p " frequently appears as an abbreviation for per 
ox par'xw the patents of the entire "James Citty " period. 

The second volume is indorsed "Beverly," probably Peter 
Beverly, who from 1692 to 1700 was clerk of the House of Bur- 
gesses, and in the latter year became its speaker. The book 
was written in 1694. There are no indorsements in the other 
books to show when they were written or the names of the 
scriveners. 

The first two books were undoubtedly written at "James 
Citty," and, after escaping the State house fire of 1698, and that 
of the Capitol at Williamsburg about 1747, were probably moved 
to Richmond in 1780, when that city became the capital. They 
have thus passed through two ordeals of fire and two wars and, 
after silently witnessing many vicissitudes lof fortune, rest in the 
historic Capitol at Richmond. 

There does not appear to be any record of legislative enact- 
ment defining the limits of "James Citty" except one of 
" Bacon's Laws," passed in 1676, by which those then existing 
were extended to include the entire island.''^ The above act, 
unfortunately, does not recite the previous limits. Shortly after 
the Bacon uprising was suppressed and the Berkeley govern- 
ment re-instated, the above law was repealed. 

Beverly wrote in 1705, that in 1620, the corporations, as they 
were then styled, were bounded, and that one of the new record 
books of transcripts contained a statement of Governor Argall 
to the effect that he had a knowledge of the boundaries of 
"James Citty," He, however, adds that "there was not to be 
found one word of the charter or patent itself of the corpora- 
tion, "f The patent to Captain John Harve}' in 1624 shows that 
the lower branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp " was the town's 
eastern boundary. 

The patents indicate that the town included nearly all of the 

* Hening Statutes, Vol. II, p. 362. 

t History of the Present State of Virghiia, p. 37. 



38 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

island above the " Head of Swamp," between James River and 
the Back River (see map), and that the first and second ridges 
formed, as it were, outlying districts. They show clearly that 
after 1623, the most thickly settled part of the town was the 
"New Towne," on the south shore of the island, below the 
church. 

About the time of Bacon's Rebellion, according to " Bacon's 
Proseedings," of unknown authorship, in the Burwell MSS. 
collection.* the town was situated "much about the midle of 
the Sowth line, close upon the River, extending east and west, 
about 3 quarters of a mile." This description accords with its 
location as determined from the patents and shown on the map 
between the initial letters F and G. The church tower, there- 
fore, stood near the western end of the town. 

' ' The New Towne ' ' was situated on the southern slope of the 
same ridge as the tower ruins (the fourth) and extended east 
from the first town of four acres, about three-eighths of a mile, 
to the lower branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp." This area is 
now mostly covered with orchards, in which considerable por- 
tions of the ground are filled with particles of brick and mortar 
of former buildings, scattered by the plow. 

Back Street was east of the church and at distances from the 
south shore of the island varying from two hundred to six hun- 
dred feet. The parts of it located were about sixty feet wide,t 
and had the same general direction, east and west, as the high- 
way referred to in the patents as the " way along the Create 
River," or "Maine River," which constituted the front street 
of the " New Towne." The two thoroughfares were connected 
by cross lanes, referred to as highways. The Back Street lay 
immediately in front of what is believed to have been the site 
of the Jacquelin-Ambler mansion. It could not have been a 
street in the modern signification of the word, with sidewalks 
and pavements, for paving before the doors of houses, even in 
" London Towne," was not introduced until 1614. It seems to 
have merged into the "old Create Road," which led to the 

* Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I. 

t Obtained by platting independently the tracts on opposite sides of 
the street. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 39 

head of the island and passed near the northeast corner of the 
old churchyard, a few rods from the same corner of the present 
one, near which there appear to be traces of a road. 

Traces of the highway along the river-bank, bordered by its 
gnarled and riven mulberries, lineal descendants, no doubt, of 
some cited in several patents as reference trees, are still to be 
seen. The planting of mulberry trees for feeding silkworms was 
initiated in i62r, and made compulsory by statute. Silk culture 
received attention as earl 3^ as 16 14, but the enterprise was never 
a commercial success. Foreign workmen were imported to 
teach silk making, and a present of silk was sent Charles II by 
Sir William Berkeley in 1668.* 

Among the earlier residents of " the New Towne " were some 
"people of qualitye " and note, including four governors. Sir 
George Yeardley, Knight; Sir Francis Wyatt, Knight; Sir John 
Harvey, Knight, " Mister, Governor and Doctor Pott," " Doc- 
tor of Physick " and " Physician General to the Colony; " also 
Captain Ralph Hamor, secretary of state and chronicler; 
George Sandys, who, v.'hile there and residing at William 
Pierce's (see map), achieved a part of his work of turning into 
English Ovid's Metafnorphoses; Captain Roger Smith, Captain 
Richard Stevens, who wounded George Harrison in a duel near 
"James Citty," and George Menify, merchant and member of 
the council, who married the relict of John Rolfe, whose second 
wife was Pocahontas. The grounds of the above persons are 
shown more or less accurately on the map. 

Sir George Yeardley's grounds had an area of seven acres, 
one rood, and appear to have extended from the branch of the 
swamp to the Back River. The area of Governor Wyatt's tract 
is not known. It included the ground, where, at a later day, 



*The present of silk, it is stated, was woven into a coronation robe 
for King Charles. As soon as the King graciously signified his accept- 
ance of the above douceur, Sir William presented a petition asking, as a 
special allowance, the customs duties on a ship's cargo of tobacco. 
The King adroitly parried this request by sending a warrant for the al- 
lowance requested, but payable when Sir William should send to Eng- 
land from Virginia a 300-ton ship laden with silk, hemp, flax, and 
potatoes. (Sainsbury's Abstracts, June 12, 1669.) It does not appear 
that the governor ever sent the above shipload of commodities and re- 
ceived the reward. 



40 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

Stood the Jacquelin-Ambler mansion. Dr. Pott first patented 
three acres and a few years later added nine acres. Captain 
Roger Smith's lot was four acres. 

In 1665, there was a bridge across the branch of swamp near 
the northwest corner of the former twelve acre tract of Governor 
Pott,* connecting the fourth and second ridges. There is a 
causeway at the above point which may have been the bridge. 
This probably was the same bridge referred to in the rendition 
of the Yeardley patent contained on page 68 of Neill's Virginia 
Carolorum. 

Among the later residents of "the New Towne " were Cap- 
tain George Marable, John Barber, Robert Casde, John Phips, 
Thos. Woodhouse, John Fitchett, John Knowles and Rev. Wil- 
liam Mays. A list of the last residents after Bacon's Rebellion 
would include the names of Henry Hartwell, Clerk of the Court, 
John Howard, Richard Holder, Lieutenant-Colonel Chiles, John 
Page, and although last, not least, Wm. Sherwood, the epitaph 
on whose tombstone in the little churchyard tells that he was 
"Born In the Parish Of White Chappell Near London. A 
Great Sinner Waiting For A loyfull Resurrection." Sherwood, 
during Bacon's Rebellion, was an adherent of Sir William Berke- 
ley. He was attorney-general, 1678-1680. In 1694 he was the 
proprietor of upwards of three hundred acres of land at the 
head of the island, including the outlying extreme western part 
of the town above the upper branch of ' ' Pitch and Tarr Swamp, ' ' 
and a small part of the " New Towne" adjacent to Back Street. 

The elevated position of the part of the fourth ridge north of 
the Back Street, between the site of the Jacquelin-Ambler mes- 
suage and the grounds of the Association for the Preservation 
of Virginia Antiquities, should have made it much sought after 
for residential purposes. There are some indications of there 
being house foundations along the line of the Back Street. The 
names of their occupants can probably never be ascertained, as 
there are apparently no documents containing that information. 

In the address of ex-president Tyler, delivered at Jamestown 
in 1857 at the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the first 
landing of the English, he remarked in referring to the destruc- 



* Va. Land Pat. Records, Book V, p. 63. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 41 

tion of the town by Bacon in 1676: "The town was partially 
rebuilt, and many of its houses remained during my early novi- 
tiate at William and Mary College " (i 802-1 807). "They stood 
in a connected street running east and west from near the present 
dwelling-house (The Jacquelin-Ambler mansion) to the ruins of 
the church." 

The foundations just mentioned probably belonged to the 
buildings alluded to by President Tyler. " The connected street 
running east and west " undoubtedly was the Back Street. 

' ' The New Towne ' ' was always inhabited until ' ' James Citty ' ' 
ceased to exist, the names of various owners of land in that 
quarter, belonging to different generations, being shown by the 
patents. Individuals bearing the surnames of many of the for- 
mer townspeople are still to be found within one hundred miles 
of the site of "James Citty." 



WEST END OF THE TOWN. 

THE positions of land grants east of the church tower ruin be- 
ing determined and the " New Towne" accurately located, 
investigation was made for the area west of the above ancient 
landmark. This resulted in placing approximately several early 
grants, previously referred to, near the head of the island on its 
western shore and in establishing quite satisfactorily the situation 
of the Bauldvvin grant of 1656, which locates Block House Hill, 
also in showing the positions of the grants of John Howard, 
Robert Beverly, the historian, Richard Lawrence, the compatriot 
of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., Edward Chilton, attorney-general, 
Colonel Nathaniel Bacon the elder, Lieutenant Edward Ross, 
Colonel Philip Ludwell the first,* and Philip Ludwell, Esq. (the 
second), of 1694. The last named grant fixes the position of 
the last state house. 

* Philip I was member of the Virginia Council for many years; was 
expelled therefrom in 1679, reinstated in 1683 and again expelled in 1687 
and disqualified for holding office; governor of Carolina iSSg-'ga; sub- 
sequently resided in London and died in England after 1716. Philip II, 
born 1666, died 1720. Speaker of House and member of Council. 
Buried at Jamestown. 



42 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

The tract described is an undated patent to John Howard of 
about 1690,* which Governor Sir Francis Nicholson failed to 
sign, but which was signed by Governor Sir Edmund Andros in 
1694, is approximately located by the present churchyard in- 
closure (see map). 

From the above patent it is learned that the direction of the 
" old Greate Road" near and north of the churchyard was N. 
27/4° ^- What would seem to be marks of this road are visi- 
ble at the above locality, as before mentioned. Its objective 
point was probably the isthmus. The parts of the road shown 
on the map not fixed by the patents are tentative. 

From the Howard patent it is learned that Colonel Nathaniel 
Bacon, Senior, the second cousin of the patriot of the same 
name, owned a lot adjoining the Howard tract on the west. It 
would also appear from agreeing in bearing, that its northern 
boundary was part of one of the southern boundaries of part of 
a lot that once belonged to the scholarly Lawrence, sequestered 
on account of its owner's participation in Bacon's Rebellion, 
and bought by Colonel Bacon, Senior, in 1683 — possibly because 
it a-djoined his tract. Lawrence's house, according to T. M.'s 
account of Bacon's Rebellion, f was one of the finest in the 
town. The remainder of the Lawrence tract probably extended 
east of that bought by Bacon. On using the common boundary 
line of the Howard and Lawrence plats, and placing the former 
in what appears to be its proper position near the graveyard, the 
latter is found to have for its northern boundary the branch of 
" Pitch and Tarr Swamp," which accords with the description 
in the patent. 

The patent of the Lawrence tract ;}; fixes the position, as its 
western boundary, of a grant to Robert Beverly in 1694, which 
in turn furnishes the position of " The Maine Cart road,"' prob- 
ably another name for "the old Greate Road," leading, most 
probably, past the well about one rod east of the state house 
building on the third ridge, towards the isthmus and Block 
House Hill. 



* Virginia Land Patent Records, Book VIII, p. 82. 

t Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I. 

$ Virginia Land Patent Records, Hook VLf, p. 300. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 43 

A correspondence of the course of the western Hne of a tract 
granted to WilHam Edwards* in 1690 with that of the eastern 
line of the Chihon tract locates the Edwards tract, and through 
it the western line of a lot of Nathaniel Bacon, Senior. The 
eastern boundary of the Bacon tract, as has been pointed out, 
was the Howard tract. Bacon's lot, therefore, occupied the 
greater part of the eastern half of the space on which stands the 
Confederate fort of 1861. 

The locating of the tracts immediately following led to locat- 
ing the foundations of the third and fourth state houses, the dis- 
covery of which, therefore, resulted from a study of the patent 
transcripts, followed by probing and excavation. 

The tract of Philip Ludwell, of 1694, being platted, its most 
probable location, after correcting for declination the bearings 
of its lines as given in the patent, was found to be on the third 
ridge, near the southern end of the seawall. This was decided 
upon after considerable study and reflection, taking into account 
the distance from " Pitch and Tarr Swamp " of the crest of the 
third ridge, which appeared to be a good site for the three 
houses shown by the patent to have been on the tract. Although 
the above location seemed to be the only one which would meet 
the requirements of the patent, it was not finally accepted until, 
as shown later, it was confirmed by further investigation. 

The tract of Edward Chilton, patented in 1683, was next 
platted. A clue to its location was furnished by one of its 
boundary lines terminating " neer ye brick fort," which fort, in 
1688, was described by the Rev. John Clayton as being situated 
in "a vale," above the town, and consequently, above the 
church tower. A probable position for the brick fort, fulfilling 
the conditions imposed by the above description, seemed to be 
in the extension westward from the river bank of the swale be- 
tween the third and fourth ridges. This view was confirmed by 
the discovery, by sounding, of piles of masonry in the shallow 
water at the locality named. The Chilton tract thus being approxi- 
mately located with reference to the brick fort, valuable inform- 

* Ibid, Book VIII, p. 42. 



44 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

ation was furnished as to the character and position of the 
adjacent shoreUne, a bluff bank, lying about east and west. A 
most important and interesting feature, however, is yet to be 
noted, viz., that when the Chilton tract (1683) was given its 
most probable location on the map, it was found to connect with 
the assumed location of Philip Ludwell's (1694) tract. More- 
over, the northern boundary of the Chilton tract which passed 
"partly along his Hon'rs line" (Hon. Philip Ludwell) is shown 
by the patents to have the same magnetic bearing as the south- 
ern boundary of the Philip Ludwell tract of 1694. The grantee 
of the 1694 tract, entitled Philip Ludwell, Esq., was undoubt- 
edly the son of the Hon. Philip Ludwell referred to in the Chil- 
ton patent. It seems probable that Philip Ludwell the second 
received part of his grant of 1694, the southern, from his father, 
who owned it in 1683, and possibly also the three brick houses, 
for the patent implies that the houses belonged to the second 
Ludwell before its date of issue in 1694. 

The patent of 1694 states that Philip Ludwell, Esq., had land 
due him for the transportation of one person to Virginia, and he 
naturally selected a new piece adjacent to that which he then 
held, probably north of the houses, receiving a grant for the 
new and old tracts combined. Instances are found in the old 
patent records of a patent being issued covering earlier grants 
that were contiguous to that acquired at the time of issuing the 
later patent. 

The proximity of the first Philip Ludwell's property to the 
state house may account, to some extent, for the interest which 
he had in rebuilding the state bouse destroyed by Bacon, for 
which work he was, in fact, the contractor. 

The plat of Chilton (1683) and Ludwell (1694) being thus 
united, trial was made to ascertain if their combined plats could 
be better located than when platted separately. It was found, 
however, that no change could be made that would improve the 
first location, and the author concluded that the time had ar- 
rived to verify his work by examining the ground. An oppor- 
tunity for doing this occurred in January, 1903, when, to his 
great satisfaction, and that of a co-worker, the steel probe used 
for exploring the ground, struck a number of buried foundation 
walls. The subsequent work of the Association for the Preser- 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 45 

vation of Virginia Antiquities, under his direction, has confirmed 
his views, the foundations discovered being within less than 25 
feet of their position as indicated by the Ludwell patent, and 
having the same width collectively as given for the Ludwell 
tract. Moreover, after correcting for variation of the needle, 
the different walls were found to have about the same azimuths 
as the boundaries of the Ludwell tract, given in the patent. 

Adjoining the Ludwell house foundations on the east are others 
agreeing in a general way with the meagre descriptions extant 
of the state house, and to the west others, which are, of course, 
the remains of the " Country House " of 1694. 

Further references to the above state house and brick fort are 
made under their respective captions. 

Near the lower extremity of the seawall, and just outside of it^ 
formerly stood a brick building, which Richard Randolph stated 
in 1837 was reputed to have been a powder magazine.* This 
building was referred to in ex-President Tyler's address at James- 
town in 1857, t previously quoted from, as the prison house of 
Opechancanough. He also stated that its cellar had been for- 
merly used for the storage of powder. If used as a magazine, 
uncommonly bad judgment was displayed in placing it where it 
would have been such a good target for a hostile fleet and where 
also in event of an explosion, it would have damaged or de- 
stroyed the buildings on the third ridge. The allusion to it as 
the prison of Opechancanough is suggestive of its being used as 
a jail, although probably not for the Indian chief who died a 
captive at Jamestown shortly after the massacre of 1644. 

In 1 89 1 the eastern foundation wall was all that remained of 
the reputed "magazine." It was then located and found to be 
about thirty-two feet long. If it was a prison, it probably was 
not built until after 1685, in which year the subject of building a 
prison was brought up in the Assembly; if a magazine, it was 
probably erected at an earlier date, possibly about the time that 
the brick fort, hereinafter described, was constructed. 

Incidentally, it may be stated that the third ridge was used as 
a camp ground for Confederate soldiers in 1861. 



* Soiotherii Literary Messenger, Vol. Ill, p. 303. 

t Celebration of the 250th anniversary of the English settlement at 
Jamestown, May 13, 1857. 



46 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

CHURCH BUILDINGS AND ORIGINAL 
GRAVEYARD. 

ONE of the vexed questions concerning the first settlement is 
the position of the first churchyard or graveyard. It is learned 
from several old chronicles that the first two churches were 
within the first fort. The map of the Virginia settlement, pro- 
cured by Zuniga, for Philip III of Spain, in September, 1608, 
previously referred to, shows a church thus inclosed. 

The first church, a rude hut " covered with rafts, sedge and 
earth," was burned within eight months of its erection. The 
second, erected in 160S, to replace the first, must also have been 
a flimsy makeshift, for it is referred to by Sir Thomas Gates, 
two years after its construction, as being in an unserviceable 
condition, shortly after which it was reconstructed by La Warre. 
Its dimensions in plan were sixty feet long by twenty-four feet 
wide, with a steeple at the west end. 

When, in 1617, Captain Argall arrived at "James Towne," 
he discovered the church which La Warre had renovated seven 
years before in ruins, a storehouse being in use for divine service. 
During his administration, i. e., from May, 1617. to April, 161 9, 
the third church, whose dimensions were " 50 by 20 foote," was 
erected. 

In 1639 Governor Sir John Harvey wrote to the Privy Coun- 
cil: "Such hath bene our Indeavour herein, that out of our 
owne purses wee have largely contributed to the building of a 
brick church, and both Masters of Shipps and others of the 
ablest Planters have liberally by our persuation underwritt to 
this worke."* 

No information is available as to when the building was begun 
or completed, but the latter is supposed to have been accom- 
plished by about 1647. It was burned in 1676. 

The fifth structure was in all probability erected during the 
partial rebuilding of the town between 1676 and 1686. There 
is not apparently available any information on the subject. It 
is not unlikely that only the woodwork of the fourth church was 
burned in 1676, and that the last church was the former struc- 

* Letter from Governor and Council in Virginia to Privy Council, 
McDonald Papers, Vol. II, pp. 233-260. 




Txg.3 



Explanation: 

Fig-. 1= Foundation Plan of 
Fourth Church Structure 
Inclosing- Fragn:ients of 
Foundations of Third. 
Broken Lines Show Cor- 
rect Positions of But- 
tresses. 

Fig. 2 Front of To-wer. 

Fig. 3 Section on Line AS. 

Fig. 4 ,. „ ,, C-D. 




Ti^.2 



RUINS OF 
CHURCH STRUCTURES 

ERECTED AT 

lAMES CITTY,VA. 

ABOUT 1617 AND 1639. 



The SHe oroid James Towne/607-J69S. 



Copyriphi , 1903,byScnnae7 HMyndi 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 47 

ture with the woodwork renewed. This would, in a measure, 
account for the church walls not having stood longer than they 
did, on account of being injured by the fire. Circumstances 
indicate that it was used until about the end of the eighteenth 
century, when its walls fell, and the bricks composing them 
were used by Mr. William Lee, of Green Spring, and Mr. John 
Ambler, of Jamestown, to inclose a part of the old burial 
ground. 

In his Old Churches and Families of Virginia, Bishop Meade 
states, with reference to the foundations of the last brick church, 
which he measured during a visit to Jamestown Island shortly 
before 1856, that the ground plan of the church had the form 
of an oblong square, whose accurately measured dimensions 
were twenty-eight by fifty-six feet.* 

In the summer of 1901, the above foundations which adjoin 
the eastern wall of the tower ruins, were uncovered by Mr. John 
Tyler, Jr., under the auspices of the Association for the Pres- 
ervation of Virginia Antiquities, to which society the surround- 
ing tract of twenty-three acres belongs. f The average length 
and width within the walls are fifty and six-tenths feet and twen- 
ty-two and seven-tenths feet, respectively. 

In clearing away from around the foundations the mould of 
more than a century, parts of the foundations of the side walls 
of a narrower building, whose inside width was about twenty 
feet, were uncovered. They consist of a footing of cobble-stones 
one foot thick, capped by a one-brick wall. The slenderness of 
the foundations indicates that their superstructure was of timber, 
as in the days of substantial building to which they belonged, 
they would have been regarded as too light for one of brick. 
It will be observed that the width of a building matching the 
foundations would be the same as given for the church built 
during Argall's term as deputy-governor. As only the western 
ends of the foundations of the two side walls remain, the length 
of the building they supported cannot be learned. 

In making the before-mentioned excavations three distinct 

* Meade's Old Churches and Families of Virgi?tia, Vol. I, p. iii. 

t Donated to the above association by Mr. and Mrs. Edward E. Bar- 
ney, in 1896. 



48 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 

sets of floor tiles were found lying at slightly different levels 
across the east end of the building, formerly belonging to a 
chancel five and one-half feet by twenty-two feet, indicating that 
there were three church structures on the same site. The low- 
est layer of tiles probably belonged- to the third church and, in 
that case, if its end walls were inclosed in the same manner as its 
side walls, which seems quite likely, the length of the third 
church would have been about fifty feet. 

As the same site was used for the three church buildings 
erected after 1617, the churchyard, which was by custom the 
principal burial ground, most probably was never changed, and 
was probably used even before that year. The finding of a 
human skeleton, while excavating the foundations, crossed by 
a wall of the church near its southeastern corner, shows that there 
was a burial ground at its site before the first brick church was 
built (1639-1647), and possibly even before the building of the 
timber church in 1618, which covered almost all of the ground 
occupied by its successor. 

From what has preceded there should be no room for doubt 
as to the lighter foundations being those of the third church 
structure, that built under Argall, and in use when Yeardley 
came to the colony in 16 19. The inclosure of one structure by 
the other suggests that, while the later church of brick was 
being constructed around the earlier one of timber, the latter 
was used for service. 

As the marriage of John Rolfe to Pocahontas occurred in 
1614, it would appear that the ceremony could not have been 
performed in the third church, whose site, as shown above, was 
subsequently occupied by the brick churches, but in the second 
structure, 60 by 24 feet in plan, which was reconstructed by La 
Warre, and situated within the triangular fort a short distance, 
probably one hundred and thirty yards, above the church tower. 
The third church, however, was undoubtedly the one used for 
the convening of the first American legislature by Governor 
Yeardley, on July 30, 1619.* 

Although the first and second churches were within the tri- 

* Colonial Records of Virginia, Extra Senate (State) Document of 
1874. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 49 

angular fort, it is not probable that the graveyard was. To have 
lived continually in such close proximity to their probable, ulti- 
mate resting place would have been as distasteful to the settlers 
as to most people of this day. Moreover, the available area of 
the acre inclosure, as already demonstrated, would have been 
fully occupied by the buildings and streets mentioned by Stra- 
chey. Interments would have been made near, but outside of 
the triangular fort. By the time the third church w^as erected, 
about i6r8, the burial ground, in consequence of the frightful 
mortality, must have grown to considerable proportions, and no 
site could have seemed more appropriate for it than the ground 
contiguous to that which had been consecrated as "God's 
Acre." 

On the occasion of the celebration at Jamestown of the bi- 
centennary of the advent of the English,'-^ " as it were by general 
consent the discovery of the oldest stone became an object of 
general emulation." * * * "beyond 1682, nothing legible 
could be traced, but from the freshness of the marble bearing 
this date contrasted with the surrounding masses of mutilated 
and mouldering decay, it was the general impression that this 
stone was comparatively young." As, ordinarily, gravestones 
do not become illegible in less than one hundred and fifty to 
two hundred years, the assumption is not unreasonable that some 
of those seen at Jamestown in 1807 belonged to the sanie period 
as the third church, although the earliest known date on any 
tombstone in Virginia is 1637.7 There is very good evidence 
that until about the i8th century many of the tombstones used 
in Virginia were shipped from across seas. 

It is stated by some who were present at Sunday services held 
for the island garrison in the old churchyard in 1861 that there 
was then a sufficient number of tombstones to serve as seats for 
the command of two hundred men. Only a few complete stones 
remain, and the fragments of others show what has been the 
common fate of nearly all. 

'^ Report on the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee at Jamestozmi, Va., 
page 9. 

t Colonel Wm. Perry's at Westover. Colonel Perry was member of 
House of Burgesses and subsequently member of the Council. 



50 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

Reference is now made to two grants to Thomas Hampton, 
Gierke, in 1639 and 1644.* Both tracts are described as being 
on a ridge of land behind the church, the earlier and smaller 
between two swamps and the later " containing from the East- 
ermost bounds Westerly one hundred and twelve paces five foot 
to the pace and running the same Breadth Northerly to the back 
river." The later grant may have been made to include the 
earlier, a practice which, as previously noted, was common to 
the period. In any event, both grants were most probably upon 
the same ridge. 

Several patents are employed to locate Hampton's two tracts, 
as follows: to John Bauldwin in 1656 for 15 acres 69 poles, 5 
acres 69 poles of which were " «/ the old block house" and 
ten acres bounded " Easterly upon Mr. James' land Northerly 
upon the back river" [marsh?], and the smaller tract," West 
upon the Main river and South upon the slash which lyeth 
between the State house and the said Mr. James." James' 
western boundary was a meridian passing "by Friggett land- 
ing, "f The approximate position of "Friggett Landing" is 
learned from the probable position of a grant to Richard Clarke 
in 1 646. J As shown on the map the Bauldwin tract agrees 
with its description. 

In 1644 Richard Sanders patented an acre " bounded west 
upon the river East upon ye marsh North upon the block house 
land and South upon the Land of Edward Challos." In the 
same year Edward Challis received a grant of an acre bounded 
"West upon the river East upon the marsh North upon the 
blockhouse Land and South towards the land of Radulph Sprag- 
gon." The word "upon" in the phrase " upon the blockhouse 
land" in the Challos patent should be towards, for Challos is 
given as the southern boundary of Sanders in the latter' s patent. 
Spraggon's land, an acre, patented in 1644, was bounded 
" South upon the land of Geo. Gilbert North towards the Way 
leading towards the Mayne West upon the river and East to- 
wards the land of Mr. Hampton." Bauldwin' s patent shows 

* Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689, and Book II, p. 105. 
t Virginia Land Patent Records, Book IV, p. 196. 
.t Ibid, Book II, p. 47. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 51 

approximately the former site of Block House Hill, below which 
was the land of Sanders, adjoining whom on the south was 
Challos. Next below came a space, probably unoccupied ex- 
cept by part of the highway, below which, but not adjoining, 
was Spraggon, all about as shown on the "Map of James 
Citty." 

Arguments have been presented for the sites of the churches 
used after 1617 and of the graveyard pertaining to them before 
that year, as being adjacent to the tower ruin at the eastern side 
of the four-acre paled town. 

The description of an acre granted to John White in 1644 
reads, "bounded West upon the Church Yard East upon the 
land apprtaining to the State House North towards the land 
of Mr. Thomas Hampton and South upon James River the 
Length being twenty three poles and breadth Seaven poles 
almost." 

The word "towards" in the White patent and also in the 
Spraggon patent with reference to Hampton's land, shows that 
the last named was situated north of the first and east of the 
second, but in each case at some indefinite, but not remote dis- 
tance, the intervening land not being patented. By projecting 
series of lines east from Spraggon and north from White they 
will intersect on the second ridge about where the Hampton 
land is indicated on the map. 

On account of the peculiar wording of the parts of the Hamp- 
ton patents, describing the relative positions of the tracts on a 
ridge, and the church, viz. ; " behind the church," it is not clear 
at first glance whether the church and the tracts were on the 
same, or different ridges. If on the same, the second, the 
church would have been mentioned in Spraggon' s patent, whose 
land was west of Hampton's. No allusion to the church, how- 
ever, occurs in that or any other patent on or near the western 
shore of the island. The particle ' ' behind ' ' is not understood 
as meaning in the rear of the church's back wall, but signifying 
on the opposite side from where the writer stood or imagined 
he was standing, or possibly as having reference to some other 
object understood but not mentioned, e. g., the churchyard or 
river bank. The above is a sample of the vague and inaccurate 



52 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

expressions appearing in some of the patents and too often used 
at the present day. 

As, according to its description, the White tract was on the 
southern bank of the island and the churchyard adjoined it on 
the west, the latter was also on the river bank. Finally, until 
1644 the first ridge belonged to the block house, and the land 
at the western end of the second ridge has been accounted for 
in that year; the third ridge was occupied by buildings from an 
early day (1666), and, therefore, most probably never contained 
the church or graveyard; all of which also goes to show that the 
church and graveyard were not on the western bank of the 
island. All of the available evidence pertaining to the church, 
therefore, proves that it and the graveyard were on the fourth 
ridge and on the southern water front at the old tower ruin. 

Bishop Meade states in effect that the graves near the tower 
ruin inclosed by a brick wall, before referred to, near the close 
of the eighteenth century, cover but a third of the original 
graveyard, which had an area of a half acre. Although the 
graves are in very close order, each one apparently occupying, 
on an average, about thirty-two square feet, it is evident that a 
half-acre would have sufficed but for a small fraction of those 
who died at "James Citty."'''^ 

In 1896, as before described, the remnant of the original head- 
land, which still shielded the adjacent river bank below it from 
abrasion, was removed to bring the shore to a fair line for re- 
ceiving protection work, constructed in that year. It is credibly 
stated that when the bank thus exposed was undermined by the 
waves, several human skeletons lying in regular order, east and 
west, about two hundred feet west of the tower ruin were un- 
covered. On account of their nearness to the tower it seems 
quite probable that the skeletons were in the original church- 
yard. One of the skulls had been perforated by a musket ball 
and several buckshot, which it still held, suggesting a military 
execution. Soon after being exposed to the air the skeletons 
crumbled. 

From the evidence of the White patent and the positions of 

* Meade's Old Chinrhes and Families of Virginia, Vol. I, p. iii. 




THE TOWER RUIN. 
Viewed from eastern pavapet of Confederate fort of iS6i. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 53 

the skeletons, it would appear that the churchyard extended 
from the junction of the Back Street with the "old Create 
Road," northeast of the church, to near the water side and up 
the latter, including a part of the ground subsequently covered 
by the Confederate fort. Thus situated, it would have had an 
area of about one and one-half acres. 

Judging from the brick bond of the church tower it belonged 
originally to the fourth of the five churches, all of which, except 
the latest one, are more or less briefly referred to in the availa- 
ble annals of the colonists. 

The first brick church and its successor would to-day be re- 
garded as very plain and unpretentious chapels. They were 
rectangular in plan, having the customary high pitched roofs on 
the church and probably also on the tower, and the aisle paved 
with brick and the chancel with tiles. The tower, situated at 
the western end, on account of being disproportionately large 
in comparision with the rest of the structure, was the prominent 
feature. On account of its solidity, it was not materially injured 
by the conflagration of 1676. Arched doorways through the 
front and back walls of the first story formed the main entrance. 
The second story openings were most probably a window in the 
west wall and a door in the east wall, the latter opening into a 
gallery across the western end of the nave, as in the " old Brick 
Church" at Smithfield,- Va. The third story was probably 
lighted only by six loop holes, two in the front and two in each 
side wall. The loop holes indicate that the intention of the 
builders of the tower was to make it defensible against Indian 
attack. As, with the defeat and death of Opechancanough in 
1644, the fear of such attacks occurring at Jamestown should 
have almost entirely disappeared, it seems likely that the tower 
was designed and probably built before or about that time. The 
brick work formerly separating the openings of the first and 
second stories having broken away, the front and back walls 
now have high portals extending to about twenty and nineteen 
feet, respectively, above the ground. 

The brick work of the tower, in so-called English bond, is 
quaintly embellished, after the fashion of the period, with glazed 
headers. The walls of the ruin were recently strengthened by 
tie rods, with ornamental washers of cruciform shape. It is a 



54 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

dignified old pile, of sombre detail, and originally had a height 
of about forty-six feet, to the peak of the spire that surmounted 
it. It is approximately eighteen feet square in plan, with walls 
three feet thick at the base, diminishing by offsets in the inner 
faces at each story to about seventeen inches at the belfry. 

Within nave and chancel are interred many unknown dead, 
and, lying with its head to the north, is an ironstone tablet, 
probably formerly a cenotaph, from which are missing inlaid 
brasses with which it was embossed. In its present position it 
does not appear to mark a tomb, for it would thus show a viola- 
tion of the time-revered custom, formerly universally observed 
in Christian burials, to place the feet towards the rising sun. 
Whose " death in life " it commemorated will probably ever re- 
main one of the mysteries of this mysterious island. 

The "James Citty " brick church resembled the "old Brick 
Church " about five miles from Smithfield, Isle of Wight County, 
Virginia, modernly known as St. Luke's. The latter, however, 
is a larger building than was the former. The points in common 
between the two churches are a tower at the western end, facing 
almost the same point of the compass, and a chancel door on the 
south side, near the eastern end of the nave. The brick work 
of St. Luke's church, however, is laid in so-called Flemish bond, 
and its tower has articulated pilasters at the western corners, 
broad friezes at each story and under the eaves and its exterior 
faces broken by offsets at each story. 

THE COLONIAL LEGISLATURE. 

WHEN Capt. Smith became president of the colony, in 1608, 
he styled the meeting of the colonists which he called to an- 
nounce that thereafter those who would not work must starve a 
" generall assembly."* 

A peculiar feature of the first colonial legislature, and appar- 
ently of those of many ensuing years, was that both of its 
branches, the governor's Council and the House of Burgesses, 
met in joint session, after the fashion of the Scotch Parliament. 

According to Beverly, this custom obtained until 16S0, when 
Governor Culpeper, " taking advantage of some disputes among 

* Works, Captain John Siniih, p. 149. 




THE MYSTERIOUS TABLET. 



The tablet is 5 feet 7^ inches long by jiyi inches wide. The black sur- 
faces show the channelings in the stone formerly filled with metal. The 
inscription plate was about ig by /o}( inches, and the height of the draped 
figure 24% inches. 



The Site of Old '■\Tames Towne," 1607-169S. 



Copyright, 190S, by Samuel H. Yonge. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 55 

them," caused the two bodies to hold their sessions in separate 
apartments, 'i^ the Council being- presided over by the governor 
and the House of Burgesses by a speaker of its own election. 

It was resolved at a session of the House of Burgesses in 
March, 1658, that "they" — "all propositions and lawes " — 
^' shall be first discussed among the Burgesses onlj'- " * * * "in 
private" * * * "and not in presence of the Governour and 
Councill."t The above action of the Burgesses, evincing a 
desire to assert the independence of their body, was a precursor 
of the discontinuance of joint sessions, above noted by Beverly. 

From what follows, the custom of holding joint sessions 
apparently had been discontinued before 1680, although it had 
been customary for two of the members of the Council to attend 
the sessions of the Burgesses, as shown in " T. M.'s ";}; account 
of Bacon's Rebellion. 

The ostensible purpose of the presence of the councillors was 
to assist the burgesses in conducting their proceedings in a par- 
liamentary manner. The real object, obviously, was to keep the 
governor fully apprised of all that occurred in this democratic 
and often intractable body. This was fully understood by the 
burgesses, some of whom, on the occasion referred to by " T. 
M.," manifested their unwillingness to have the councillors 
present. 

Prior to its session in September, 1632, the colonial legislature 
of Virginia was styled "The General Assembly." Beginning 
with the above session, it was called "The Grand Assembly," 

* History of the Present State of Virginia, by Robert Beverly, p. 187. 

t Hening' s Statutes, Vol. I, p. 497. 

X The Beginning, Progress and Coftcttision of Bacon's Rebellion in 
Virgiftia, in the Years 16J5-1676, p. \t^.— Force's Historical Tracts, 
Vol. I. — "T. M." is supposed by Campbell and Fiske to have been 
Thomas Mathews, son of Samuel Mathews, governor of Virginia, 1657- 
1659. (Campbell's History of Virginia, p. 284, and Fiske 's Old Vir- 
ginia and her Neighbours, Vol. II, p. 66.) The available evidence is 
quite conclusive that "T. M. " was Thomas Mathew, and not Thomas 
Mathews, a son of the governor. See Notes and Queries, by W. G. 
Standard, Virginia Historical Magazine, Vol. I. (1893-1894), pp. 201 and 
202. He was a timid, cautious man, who unwillingly became the rep- 
resentative of Stafiford county in the first Assembly after the " Long 
Assembly." 



56 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

which title it bore until the session of June, 1680, when the 
former appellation was revived. 

"JAMES CITTY" STATE HOUSES. 

THE first General Assembly, as previously stated, was convened 
in the third church, referred to in the last chapter as hav- 
ing its foundations inclosed by those of its successor, the first 
brick church, erected between 1639 and 1647. 

The available information concerning the various buildings 
used for subsequent meetings of the legislature and for holding 
courts is too incomplete, meagre and obscure to be reduced to a 
succinct and entirely satisfactory statement. Following are 
deductions from the available data pertinent to the subject, which 
are given in subsequent pages: 

During about the first two decades after 1619 there were at 
least twelve sessions of the legislature. They were probably 
held either in the third church or at the governor's house. 
There were also held during the above period sessions of the 
court and meetings of the governor and Council. From the 
latter the proclamations of the governor that were intended to 
take the place of legislative enactments, were probably promul- 
gated.* 

During the next six decades, while "James Citty " remained 
the seat of government, there were apparently four different 
state house buildings, all of which were burned. The time they 
were occupied collectively amounted to about forty-three years. 
During the intervals between the burning of the several state- 
houses and the acquiring of new ones, amounting in the aggre- 
gate approximately to seventeen years, taverns were used for 
the meetings of the Assembly and the sessions of the courts. 

As in April, 1641, the colonial government purchased from 
ex-Governor Harvey, who about a year before was adjudged a 
bankrupt, one of his houses, known as the courthouse, the 
courts and meetings of the governor and Council were no doubt 
held there, and probably also the meetings of the whole legis- 
lature. The above building, therefore, most probably consti- 
tuted the first state house. 

* Hening' s Statutes, Vol. I, p. 120. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 57 

In June, 1642, the Grand Assembly presented Governor 
Berkeley with two houses and a tract of land adjacent to them, 
at "James Citty. " Between the above year and 1655, Gov- 
ernor Berkeley erected a house adjoining on the west the first 
state house, which thus became the middlemost of three houses, 
all having the same dimensions in plan, viz., forty by twenty 
feet, and forming a block with a frontage on the river of sixty 
feet and a depth of forty feet. The block was sixty-seven feet 
from the southern bank of the island and about forty-five yards 
below the present wharf. The bank probably having receded 
slightly, its site would now be somewhat nearer the present bank 
line. 

The middle house of the block was used as a state house for 
about thirteen years longer, or until some time between March, 
1655, ^"d June, 1656, when it would seem to have been burned. 
After the burning of the above building two courts were held in 
a tavern kept by Thomas Woodhouse. 

The available information about the second state house is scant 
and indirect. The building appears to have been acquired some 
time before October, 1656. All that is known of it is learned 
from a reference to it in a patent of the above year from which 
it appears to have been situated on the fourth ridge. It appar- 
ently was used for but three or four years, and then burned. 

During the ensuing five years, or until about 1665, the colo- 
ny's affairs seem to have been transacted in part, if not entirely, 
in taverns belonging to Thomas Woodhouse and Thomas Hunt, 
situated on the river bank about one hundred and three hun- 
dred yards, respectively, east of the first state house. About the 
above year a house was purchased or built by the colonial gov- 
ernment on the third ridge about two hundred and forty yards 
northeast of the brick church, and this served as the state house 
until burned by Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., in September, 1676. 

During the ten years following, or until about 16S6, the expe- 
dient of using taverns for meetings of the legislature was again 
resorted to. In the above year the re-building of the statehouse 
was completed. As it was on the site of its predecessor, it most 
probably had the same proportions, which in plan were about 
seventy-four feet long and twenty feet wide, within the walls. 
This was the last state house building erected at "James Citty.' 



58 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

It was occupied for about twelve years, and was burned in the 
fall of 1698. The Assembly held its last session at "James 
Citty, " in April, 1699, when it was decreed to move the capital 
to Williamsburg. 

Subjoined are the data on which the foregoing is based. 

The earliest available evidence of the colony's intention, to 
build a state house appears in a letter from its governor, Sir 
John Harvey, Knight, and his council to the Privy Council, 
dated January 18, 1639, in which it is stated that by the King's 
command a levy had been raised for the above purpose. ^'^ One 
year later, during the session of the Grand Assembly beginning 
January 6, 1 639-40, f an act was passed providing for defraying 
the cost of building a state house by a poll assessment of two 
pounds of tobacco. 

On April 7, 1641, about fifteen months after the passage of 
the above act, Sir John Harvey conveyed to the colonial gov- 
ernment, for 15,700 pounds of tobacco, to be paid the following 
January, J "all that capital messuage or tenement now used for 
a court house late in the tenure of Sir John Harvey, Knt., situ- 
ate and being within James City Island in Virginia with the old 
house and granary, garden and orchard as also one piece or 
plot of ground lying and being on the west side of the said cap- 
ital and messuage as the same is now inclosed. "§ The above 
conveyance shows that the court had been holding its sessions 
in a house owned by Sir John Harvey, and it seems quite likely 
that the assessment of January, 1639-40, was expended in buying 
Harvey's houses and lot, one of the former being the court 
house. It is more than possible that the Grand Assembly had 

* McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 249. 

■\ Hening' s Statutes, Vol. I, p. 226. — The acts of several of the Assem- 
blies between 1619 and 1642 are not known to be in existence. They 
are only known to have been framed by allusions to them in acts passed 
at other sessions, contained in Hening's Statutes, and from being men- 
tioned in the land patents, in official correspondence, and in the min- 
utes of the London Company. 

J The poll assessment of January, 1640, would have become due Jan- 
uary, 1641. 
§ Transcripts of Miscellaneous MSS., by Conway Robinson, p. iSS. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 59 

also been meeting in the same house. It seems most probable 
that the above building was the one mentioned in patents re- 
ferred to below as "the old state house," whose location is 
given further on. 

In a letter of instructions from the King to Governor Berkeley 
and the colonial Council in August, 1641, the building of a state 
house is ordered. 

By an act of Assembly passed in June, 1642, two houses and 
an orchard " belonging to the colony" were presented to Gov- 
ernor Berkeley. This act was confirmed by another passed at 
the session of March, 1642.* 

In February, 1643, a patent was issued to Captain Robert 
Hutchinson, Burgess from "James Citty," for one and one-half 
acres situated on the south shore of the island and bounded 
west in part ''towards'" the state house. f It appears from the 
Hutchinson patent that by 1643 the previous acts of Assembly 
for procuring a state house had gone into effect, and that the 
building was on the south shore of the island. 

In August, 1644, a patent previously quoted from was issued 
to John White for one acre of land lying along the south shore 
of the island, between the churchyard on the west and the state 
house land on the east.;}; This locates the state house with ref- 
erence to the churchyard in 1644, whose position has already 
been determined, and places the western boundary of the state 
house grounds about twelve yards below the present wharf, or 
about seventy yards below the eastern boundary of the land now 
owned by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Anti- 
quities. 

* Hening' s Statutes, Vol. I, p. 267. 

t Va. Land Pat. Records, Book I, p. 944. 

Hutchinson's patent reads "bounded South upon the river North to- 
wards Pasby Hayes, West upon the land of John Osborne & towards 
the State House." As the tract could not have been situated on the 
southern bank of the island and at the same time been in a southerly 
direction from Paspahegh town, which was on the main land above the 
island, either some other locality named Pasby Hayes was referred to 
or an error made in describing the tract or transcribing the patent. 

I Va. Land Pat. Records, Pook II, p. 10. 



60 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 

On March 30, 1655, Sir William Berkeley sold to Richard 
Bennett, who had succeeded him as governor in 1652, his house, 
" the westernmost of the three brick houses," which the deed 
recites the grantor had built.* The deed, however, does not 
show that the ground on which the house stood and that adjacent 
to it was sold with the house. The above mentioned land was 
granted to Thomas Ludwell 3nd Thomas Stegg, January i, 1667. 
Its area was a half acre. It was situated on the southern shore 
of the island ' ' adjoyning to the westermost of those three 
houses all of which joyntly were formerly called by the name of 
the old state house," sixty-seven feet from high-water mark. f 
From what follows the patent apparently did not include the 
house, or, more correctly, its ruins. 

Henry Randolph, clerk of the court, sold the ruins of the 
three houses and the grounds they respectively covered, April 
7, 1671,1 as follows: The eastern house ruins and- ground to 
Thomas Swann, of the county of Surry; the middle, or "old 
state house" proper, to Nathaniel Bacon [Sr.], executor of the 
estate of Colonel Myles Cary,§ and the western to Thomas 
Ludwell. By his will, proved May 15, 1671, Thomas Stegge 
left to Thomas Ludwell his interest in a house bought jointly 
with Ludwell of Henry Randolph. || Ludwell subsequently 
secured a patent for a half acre of land adjoining the house ruins 
and sold the property to Sir William Berkeley for one hundred 
and fifty pounds sterling, March 17, 1672.^ 

It seems most probable that the building erected by Governor 
Berkeley between 1642 and 1655 and sold by him to Richard 
Bennett in the latter year, the one referred to in the patent to 
Ludwell and Stegg of 1667, that sold by Randolph to Thomas 

* Healing'' s Statutes, Vol. I, p. 407. 

t Virginia Land Patent Records, Book VI, p. 223. 

X Conway Robinson' s Transcripts of Miscellaneous Manuscripts, p. 
258, from General Court Rule Book No. 2, pp. 155, 617. 

\ Colonel Cary came to Virginia in 1645, constructed the first fort on 
site of Fort Monroe, and was killed there in an engagement with the 
Dutch, in 1667. 

II Genealogical Gleanings in England, p. 102. 

\ Robinson''s Transcripts, p. 258. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 61 

Ludvvell in 1671, and by Ludwell to Berkeley in 1672, were one 
and the same. 

The foregoing proves conclusively that the first state house 
was near the southern bank of the island and eastward of the 
old tower ruin. 

It also seems probable that the orchard land and two houses 
donated to Governor Berkeley in March, 1642-43, were the same 
bought by the Grand Assembly from Sir John Harvey in April, 
164 1, and paid for in January following, and that the building 
previously referred to as being built by Berkeley was an addition 
made by him on the western side of the Harvey buildings. The 
westernmost of the two buildings previously owned by Harvey, 
therefore, became the middlemost of the block. It had been 
used as a courthouse in his time, as stated above, and constituted 
the state house during Berkeley's first term. 

In the description of a tract of land patented to John Bauld- 
win in October, 1656. as previously noted, the land of Richard 
■James is given as its eastern boundary, and "the slash which 
lyeth between the State House [land] and the said Mr. James " 
as its southern.* Richard James' land, of which patent was re- 
corded June 5, 1657, included one hundred and fifty acres of the 
second ridge east of a "northerly" line passing "by" the 
" Friggett Landing," to the marsh below " Pyping Point, "f 
including forty acres granted in 1654. J The slash, forming 
Bauldwin's southern boundary, was the upper branch of " Pitch 
and Tarr Swamp," which is the northern boundary of the third 
and fourth ridges. The state house referred to in the patent, 
or probably more precisely the state house land, would seem to 
have been on the fourth ridge, as the part of the third ridge 
east of James' western line prolonged is very low ground. 

During the session of the Assembly in October, 1666, an act 
was passed confirming the ownership of land held under unre- 
corded patents, on the grounds that their being unrecorded re- 
sulted from the neglect of the clerks and the destruction of the 

*Va. Land Pat. Records, Book IV, p. 88. 

^Ibid, Book IV, p. 196. Xlbid, Book III, p. 36S. 



62 THE SITE OF OLD "jAMES TOWNE." 

records by "two severall fires."* The above indicates that the 
repositories of the records — two state houses — had been burned. 
The "two severall fires," therefore, were doubtless those of the 
" old state house " — the first state house, on the southern island 
bank — and its successor, referred to in the Bauldwin patent, on 
the fourth ridge. 

As Governor Berkeley sold his house in the " old state house " 
block to Governor Bennett, March 30, 1655, and as the Assem- 
bly passed an act during the session beginning December i, 
1656, providing for the payment of 2,500 pounds of tobacco to 
Thomas Woodhouse for house rent for the accommodation of 
the committee and for two sittings of the quarter courts, f held, 
probably in June and September, 1656, preceding, it would 
appear that the first state house was burned between March, 1655, 
and June, 1656. 

The second state house was probably improvised out of a pri- 
vate dwelling, for in those days of great inertia the four to seven 
months interval between the burning of the first state house and 
the issuing of the Bauldwin patent which contains the allusion to 
the second state house seems hardly long enough for erecting a 
building. 

The second state house was probably burned shortly before 
1660, for during the session of the Assembly in October of that 
year, house rent incurred for Assembly meetings amounting to 
3,500 pounds of tobacco, and for meetings of the governor and 
Council amounting to 4,000 pounds of the same medium of ex- 
change were appropriated and ordered paid to Thomas Hunt 
and Thomas Woodhouse, respectively, t 

During the above session Governor Berkeley was requested 
by the Assembly to take charge of the building of a state house 
and authorized to pay liabilities incurred therefor out of the 
public funds and those to be thereafter raised by act of Assem- 
bly. He was also authorized to impress ten men to work on the 
building. § 

In 1654 a grant of an acre lot on the southern water front of 

* Hening'' s Statutes, Vol. II, p. 245. 
'\Ibid, Vol. I, p. 425. 
XHeni7ig's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 12. 
llbid, Vol. II, p. 13. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE," 63 

the town was made to Thomas Woodhouse.* Judging from the 
agreement of direction of the lot's southern boundary, as given 
in the patent, with the part of the river bank one hundred yards 
east of the first state house, or just west of the turf fort, the lot 
was near that locality. A grant of one acre on the same shore 
about two hundred yards further east, was also made to Thomas 
Hunt in 1655. f It is possible that the above tracts were those 
on which were situated the taverns, in which rooms were rented 
for meetings of the Assembly and for holding court. Their de- 
scriptions in the patents, however, are insufficient to definitely 
locate them. Thomas Woodhouse in 1694 owned a tract on 
the crest of the fourth ridge, just west of the Ambler mansion, 
on which, possibly, his tavern was situated. 

During a session of the Assembly in March. 1660-1661, the 
expense of renting halls for holding its meetings and those of 
the court was urged as a cogent reason for acquiring a state 
house, and, with a view to making the necessary taxation for the 
purpose as light as possible, it was resolved to solicit subscrip- 
tions, f The governor, councillors, and burgesses headed the 
list of subscribers, donating considerable sums of money and 
tobacco, to be paid out of the next crop. After a lapse of over 
two years the matter was again brought up in the Assembly, on 
September 16, 1663.'! The question as then submitted was, 
' ' Since the charge the country is yearly at for houses for the quar- 
ter courts and assemblys to sit in would in two or 3 years defray the 
purchase of a state house. Whether it were not more profitable 
to purchase for that purpose then continue for ever at the ex- 
pence, accompanied with the dishonour of all our laws being 
made and our judgments given in alehouses." 

On the day following a committee of six burgesses was ap- 
pointed to confer with the governor about a state house. || 

* Va. Land Pat. Records, Book III, p. 380. 
t Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 38. 
X Ibid, Vol. II, p. 204. 
II Ibid, Vol. II, p. aos. 



64 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

Under date of April lo, 1665, Thomas Ludwell, colonial sec- 
retary of state, wrote Lord Arlington that the rebuilding of the 
town in brick was sufficiently advanced to furnish the necessary 
buildings in which to transact the business of the colony. The 
buildings referred to by Ludwell were probably some of those 
erected in furtherance of the act of Assembly of December, 1662, 
for rebuilding the town with brick houses,* and it is probable 
that the meaning of the letter was that the state house building 
was completed. 

There does not appear to be extant any description of the 
third state house or any data of record definitely fixing its loca- 
tion. The following extract from a message addressed to the 
House by the governor during the session of the Assembly of 
1685 t shows that the third and fourth state house buildings oc- 
cupied the same site and probably were of the same shape and 
proportions: "This day an addresse and some orders of yr. 
House have been presented to me & ye Council by some of yr. 
members, and doe much wonder, you. should propose soe un- 
reasonably, as to desire our concurrence, in ye memorial [re- 
moval ?] of ye secretaries office, wch. ever since ye state House 
was first built, until burnt, has been continued in ye place you 
allot for an office for ye Clerk, soe that Mr. Secretary justly 
claims it by prescription, and you yrselves have soe consented 
and alsoe desired, that it be enlarged as by ye agreement made 
ye last Gen'l Assembly with Col. Ludwell." The spot, there- 
fore, is established where, in June, 1676, Bacon, at the head of 
his little army, demanded a commission to proceed against and 
chastise the Indians, and where the testy old governor, while 
baring his breast, reiterated the words, "here! shoot me, 'fore 
God, fair mark, shoot." 

After the burning of the third state house in September, 1676, 
it was proposed to rebuild at Tindall's Point, ;{: now known as 
Gloucester Point, on York river. "James Towne," however, 
was not yet to be abandoned, and in about eight years the re- 
building of the state house on the old site was begun. 

* Ibid, Vol. II, pp. 172, 173. 

t McDonald Papers. Vol, VII, pp. 379, 380. 

t Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 405. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 65 

In the interim between the burning of the third state house 
and its rebuilding, the expedient of using taverns for holding 
the sessions of the Grand Assembly, as had been twice done 
when the colony had lost its capitol by fire, was again resorted 
to, allowances of tobacco being made to Mr. Henry Gauler for 
several meetings of the court and Assembly held at his tavern.* 
In the 1685 session of the General Assembly an agreement was 
entered into with Mr. William Sherwood for the use of ' ' his 
great Hall, and ye back room on ye same floor and ye cellar 
under ye said room," for courthouse purposes, during the en- 
suing year, including " fire, candle and attendance," at twenty- 
five pounds sterling per annum. f Sherwood's house was un- 
doubtedly on the site of the acre lot bought by him in 1681, on 
which stood the country house. 

The approximate site of the fourth state house is learned from 
the following quotation from a patent to William Sherwood, re- 
corded April 20, 1694:;!; "grant unto William Sherwood of 
James City Gent, 308 acres of land Scituate lying and being in 
James City and James City Island, beginning on James River at 
the head of Pitch and tarr swamp next above the state house 
and running along the North side thereof" [branch of swamp]. 
A study of the above patent leaves no room for doubting that 
the branch of swamp referred to was the upper branch, from 
which it follows that the building stood on the third ridge. 

The site of the fourth state house was unknown until early in 
1903, when, as b(;fore stated, it was located by the author. A 
few references to its predecessor occur in " T. M.'s " account 
of Bacon's Rebellion. This narrative, written thirty years after 
the above revolution, shows that the state house of 1666-1676 
was a two-story building. At the eastern end of the first story 
was an apartment used as the council chamber and for court 
house purposes. In the second story was the Assembly room of 
the House of Burgesses, "a long room." From the manner in 
which the " end of the state house " is referred to by " T. M.," 
it might appear that the building had but one free end. This 

* McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 372, 376. 

^Ibid, pp. 385, 388. 

% Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VIII, p. 384. 



66 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

accords with the plan of the fourth state house, the western end 
of which, as discovered by excavating its foundations, adjoined 
the easternmost of PhiUp Ludwell's three houses referred to 
below.* The Ludwell tract had an area of one and one-half 
acres, in the shape of an oblong- rectangle, with its northern 
boundary "near the Pitch and Tarr Swamp." The patent 
shows that the northern and southern fronts of three houses, of 
which the tract contained the ruins, had collectively the same 
length, viz., three and three-fourths chains, f or one hundred and 
twenty-three and three-fourths feet, and about the same azimuth 
as the north and south boundary lines of the tract. 

In February, 1903, the earth overlying the walls found during 
the preceding month by probing on the crest of the third ridge 
where it seemed probable the ruins of the three houses men- 
tioned in the Ludwell patent of 1694 had stood, was removed by 
the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities to 
depths of one to five feet, when the brick foundations of a for- 
mer row of buildings about two hundred and forty feet long by 
about twenty-four to forty-six feet wide, were disclosed. The 
foundations are on the highest part of the ridge where its eleva- 
tion is about two and one-half to three and one-half feet above 
great tides. The ground falls gently from the foundations to- 
wards the east, and the shapes of the contours indicate that the 
part of the ridge abraded by the waves sloped towards the 
western shore. 

The foundations are divided by heavy cross-walls intc five 
principal divisions. The main walls are about two feet thick, 
the cross-walls from fourteen inches to two feet. 

As above explained, the westernmost foundations belonged to 
the " Country House," those of the next three buildings to the 
ruins of Philip Ludwell's houses and the easternmost to the 
state house. All of the buildings except the state house were 
about forty feet square within the walls. A small proportion of 
the underpinning of the northernmost wall of the middle and 
eastern Ludwell houses is granite rubble. With the above ex- 

* Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I, p. 16. — Bacon's Rebellion. 

t The chain used in the "James Citty" surveys was two poles, or 
thirty-three feet long. 




o 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 67 

ception the walls rest on a bed of mortar about two inches 
thick. On account of the base of the foundations being of 
different material, as above noted, and of the cross walls north 
of the middle main wall being out of line with those south of it, 
it is surmised that the northern halves of the two houses alluded 
to were constructed at a different period from the southern 
halves, possibly a later one. The inside dimensions of the ear- 
lier houses would, therefore, have been twenty by forty feet, 
thus according with the specifications contained in the statute of 
December, 1662, for rebuilding the town. 

The remains of several immense fire places are found in all of 
the buildings excepting the state house. The fire places are gen- 
erally about eight feet long between the jambs. One, in the 
southern half of the " Country House," is eight and a half feet 
long. The jambs project about three feet from the walls. 

The buildings appear to have been divided into apartments 
about twenty feet square by the fire places and heavy partition 
walls. 

The foundations of two of the partitions are T-shaped. It is 
conjectured that the spaces between the heads of the T's and the 
southern porches were approximately square halls, with a room 
at either end. The spaces between the T-heads and the middle 
main wall of either side of the stem of the T were probably uti- 
lized as lockers or closets. The obliquity of the T partition and 
also of the porch of the middle Ludwell house with reference to 
the main walls cannot be satisfactorily explained. It may have 
been the result of careless work of the builder, or it may indi- 
cate that the main walls belonged to buildings erected at different 
periods from the other parts referred to. The floors of several 
of the rooms were paved with brick, parts of the paving still 
remaining. 

Brick foundations of several porches projecting from the south- 
ern main wall indicate that the buildings faced the south. One 
of the porches adjoins the middle of the state house, two others 
the easternmost and middle Ludwell houses. They were about 
ten feet square inside. Their foundation walls are eighteen to 
twenty-two inches thick. At the eastern end of the middle Lud- 
well house are what appear to have been the foundations of an- 
other and smaller porch eight and one-half feet square inside 



68 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

the walls. It may have belonged to a house erected prior to 
1665. 

Under the northern half of the westernmost Ludwell house 
was found a cellar, twenty by forty feet by about six feet deep, 
filled with the brick of fallen walls. The cellar is paved with 
brick. In the floor is a pit three and one iialf feet square by 
three feet deep, with brick-lined sides. Leading from the pit to 
what w'as apparently formerly a hole about a foot in diameter is 
a shallow drain. It is possible that the pit was for draining the 
cellar, but it is far more probable that it was a well. On the floor 
of the cellar were several sheets of melted lead, and among the 
brick debris were a " sacar " shot, also two bombshells — one of 
the calibre of a demi-culverin, the other of a sacar — and frag- 
ments of exploded shells. The above warlike relics may have 
been fired in 1676 from Bacon's trench near the north end of the 
isthmus. The cellar is entered by a flight of steps on its north- 
ern side. A pipe, scissors, steel sewing-thimble, copper candle- 
stick, ladies' riding-stirrup, and an old bottle, all of quaint and 
antique shapes, were found in the cellar. 

The bond of the brick work of the cellar walls is the same as 
that of the foundations and tower ruin of the brick church of 
1639-47 — viz., the so-called English bond. This bond is found 
in Flanders, Holland, and Rhenish Germany, from which coun- 
tries it appears to have been introduced into Great Britain.* Its 
employment at "James Towne" is probably to be accounted 
for by several of the residents of the town during its fourth de- 
cade being German or Dutch brickmakers and bricklayers. 

The "Country House" is separated from the Ludwell build- 
ings by an eighteen-inch party wall. Under its northen; half 
was an unpaved cellar entered by a flight of steps on the north 
side similar to those of the Ludwell cellar. 

The foundations of the state house show that it was about sev- 
enty-four feet by twenty feet within the walls. It was divided by 
a fourteen-inch cross wall into two parts, one about forty-two, 
the other about thirty-one feet long. Projecting from the mid- 
dle of the north wall are foundations of a wing about fifteen 
feet square within the walls, referred to below. On each side ol 

* Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. IV, page 461. 



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THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 69 

the wing is a projection which may have belonged to bay win- 
dows or fireplaces. If not to the latter, the state house prob- 
ably was not heated, as there are no other indications of fire- 
places in the building. 

The general plan of the state house, with its north wing and 
south porch, is symmetrical. 

From the original transcript of the Journal of the General As- 
sembly, held at Jamestown in May, 1684 * it is learned that 
during that session a committee consisting of " Coll" Kendall — 
Capt: Fra: Page — Capt: Robinson — Coll° George Mason — Mr. 
Hen: Hartwell— Major Allen and Mr. Sherwood," was appointed 
to consider the rebuilding of the state house and to ascertain its 
cost. The committee was also instructed to submit with its re- 
port the proposals of any persons willing to perform the work. 
The committee acted promptly and its report f was as promptly 
approved by the House. The report was then submitted to the 
governor, who appointed Mr. Sherwood to draw up a contract 
"between his Exlncy & the .Speaker in behalfe of the Generall 
Assembly and the Hon"'" ColP Philhp Ludwell for the Rebuild- 
ing the state house." 

The only available data pertaining to the arrangement of the 
interior of the building are the allusions to it in " T. M.'s" 
account of Bacon's Rebellion, and the Journal of the General 
Assembly held at "James Citty " in November and December, 
1685,1 quoted from above. 

During the above session the rebuilding of the state house 
was probably nearly completed, and it was ordered by the House 
"That Mr. Auditor Bacon pay to Col. Philip Ludwell fower 
hundred pounds sterling out of ye Moneys accruing from ye 
duty of three pence pr. gallon upon liquors, for and in consid- 
eration of rebuilding ye State House, upon payment of wch 



* Colonial Record Book, Vol. 85, pp. 168-207, P- R- O., London, Eng- 
land. 

t Miss Ethel B. Sainsbury, of London, England, who examined and 
made transcripts of portions of the above documents for the author 
states that the committee's report does not appear in the files of the 
London P. R. O. 

J McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 312, et seq. 



70 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

money, Mr. Auditor is desired to take bond from Col. Ludwell 
for ye full compleating of ye House, in such manner as shall be 
fully satisfactory to his Excellency ye Council cS: ye House of 
Burgesses answerably good and equivalent to the condition of 
ye same."''^ 

From the same Journal of the Assembly it is learned that the 
Assembly room wherein the Burgesses met most probably occu- 
pied the entire second floor of the main building, and that ad- 
joining the Assembly room was a smaller apartment referred to as 
the porch room or porch chamber, which in the third state house 
had been used as the Secretary's office and as a repository of 
the colonial records. This room, as shown by the e.xtracts from 
the Assembly Journal, was a bone of contention between the 
governor (Effingham) and the House, and no doubt had much 
to do with the subsequent persecution of Robert Beverley, 
Clerk of the Assembly. It is conjectured that the porch room 
was over the south porch. 

The chamber used for the double purpose of holding sessions 
of the Court and meetings of the Council was on the first floor — 
probably represented by the larger of the two divisions, the 
eastern, formed by the fourteen-inch cross wall. The .smaller, 
or western, was used as a waiting-room for those having business 
at court. A part of the latter, at its western end, was cut off by 
a wooden petition in 16S5 or 1686 for an oflice lor the Secretary 
of State. It is likely that there was a wide hall in the first story 
connecting the south porch and the north wing, and as " T. M." 
states that he saw the Council in session through the open door- 
way while on his way up to the Assembly, it seems likely that 
the hall contained the staircase. This position of the staircase, 
however, is purely conjectural. 

As the foundations of the north wing are but fourteen inches 
thick, they probably carried walls but one story high, which 
prior to 1686 may have belonged to the office of the clerk of the 
Assembly. 

Subjoined are extracts from the Journal of the Assembly in 
December, 1685, the authority for some of the foregoing deduc- 
tions: 

♦ Ibid, p. 366. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 71 

"Resolved by ye House, that ye room in ye state House, 
called ye Porch Chamber be kept and appropriated an office for 
ye Clk of ye Assbly and yt Robert Beverley* ye present Clerk 
take possession thereof and therein Lodge and place all Re- 
cords, Books and Papers, belonging to ye Assembly, wch either 
now are or for ye time to come shall be committed to his charge 
keeping or Custody. 

Ordered that this resolve of ye House be sent to his Excel- 
lency and ye Councel, with ye requests of this House for their 
concurrence therein. 

Proposed by ye House, yt ye lower room in the state House 
opposite to ye Court House room be with all possible expidition 
fitted for ye Secretaries Office, And this House doe pray his 
Excellency will please to command and direct ye doing thereof, 
and yt the Honble Col Ludwell be treated with about it 

Xber 4th 1685 

Signed by Order of ye House of Burgesses 

RoBT Beverley, Clk Assbly" 
"Xber 8th 1685. 

By ye House of Burgesses 
To his Excellency and ye Council. 

This House having read and considered yr Exclies late answer 
to ye resolve of this House, appointing ye room called ye Porch 
room in ye State House for an office for their Clerk, and that ye 
lower room under ye Assembly room may be fitted, soe much 
thereof, as is necessary, for an office for Mr. Secretary, doe now 
again supplicate yr Excellency and ye Council, will please to 
concur with them therein, for although they doe acknowledge 
yt ye sd porch room att ye first building of ye State House was 
made use of for an office for ye Secretary, yet ye House of Bur- 
gesses whilst it soe remained, all along observed it, both incon- 
venient and incommodious to them whilst sitting; there being 
nothing spoken or proposed in ye House, that was not equally 
to be heard there, as wel as in ye Assembly room itselfe, besides 
ye same gave continuall opportunity to all sorts of psons to 

* Although this name is now spelled both with and without an e in the 
last syllable, the former style appears to have been that used by the 
above-mentioned person. 



72 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

crowd before the Assembly room, under pretence of coming to 
ye Office. 

And this House doe again propose to your Excelcy & Honrs 
such part of ye room, under ye Assembly rooms, as is necessary 
for ye Secretaries office, wch by seeling ye Walls and raising ye 
floor will become as safe & commodious for preservation of ye 
Records, as its possible any other place can be made, wch they 
doubt not will soe appear to yr Excellency and ye Councel, to 
whom they submit ye manner of doing and directions thereof, 
and againe request ye acceptance thereof, to that purpose. 

Test Robert Beverley Clk Assbly. 
The following answer was ordered to be returned. 

By His Excellency & Council. 
Your reasons given for ye Porch room to remaine an office for 
your Clerk, have been considered and agreed to, upon condition 
his Majestys Secretary upon ye first notice given him, be content 
that his office shall be in ye lower room you propose wch is not 
in ye least to be doubted, and that you will provide, that a strong- 
partition be made under ye second girder, att ye West end of ye 
said room, ye floor raised two foot from ye ground, ye walls 
ceeled, with sawen boards smoothd and battened, and ye Win- 
dows iron barred, and shutters or Window leaves, of half inch 
board with a crosse barr to each, with shelves, table & benches 
to be well done and compleatly finishd before ye next general 
court, att ye charge of ye Country, to be paid for ye next Gene- 
ral Assembly, and that you agree with some workman accord- 
ingly." 

It is interesting to note that Robert Beverley, who was the 
clerk of the Assembly in 16S5, probably never occupied the 
porch chamber as an office, for by a letter from King James H, 
dated August i, 1686, he was forever disqualified for holding- 
office, the reason assigned for which in the letter being that he 
had " chiefly occasioned and promoted those disputes and con- 
tests " of the Assembly, in the stormy session of 1685. The 
King's letter also deprived the House of the privilege of electing 
its clerk, transferring to the governor authority to fill the posi- 
tion by appointment, and ordered Beverley's prosecution for 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 73 

altering- the records.* Beverley died shortly before April, 1687. 

By an order of the General Assembly there was to be placed 
a " railing with rails and banisters of Locust or Cedar wood laid 
double in Oyle & and as close as may be ye forepart of ye State 
House, of convenient height & att convenient distance from ye 
House, "t The above is taken to mean that the railing was to 
be placed across the Assembly room to exclude spectators from 
the part of the hall appointed for sessions of the Burgesses. 

In uncovering the foundations it was discovered that nearly 
all of the brick of which the walls were composed and parts of 
those belonging to the foundations had been removed, also some 
of the brick paving. 

It is inferred from finding fragments of slate and tiles around 
the foundations that the roofs of the buildings were covered 
with those materials. They were specified in the statute of De- 
cember, 1662, 

The row of buildings was probably completed about 1666, 
burned in 1676, and partly rebuilt in 1685 and 1686. The re- 
mainder of the row was possibly rebuilt between 1694 and 1698. 
The buildings comprising it were destroyed in the fire of Octo- 
ber 31, 1698. 

The foregoing views as to the arrangement of rooms in the 
fourth state house are exhibited on the accompanying plate. 

During the fall and early winter of 1903 the association built 
up the foundations to the level of the ground with concrete and 
the walls of the cellars with the original brick. On account of 
the brick being very fragile the cellar walls were protected with 
cement plaster. 

From what has preceded it is evident that the " James Citty " 
state houses, although substantial, were not imposing structures. 
In the case of the first, third and fourth, they formed part of a 
row or block of buildings. 

It is not surprising that the colony, which a few years before 
the building of the fourth state house had a population of but 
50,000 to 60,000 free holders, J could not afford out of its pov- 

* Hening's Statutes, Vol. Ill, page 41. 
t McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 397. 
X Sainsbury' s Calendar of State Papers, Vol. 1681-1685. 



74 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

erty and under its heavy burden of taxation, to have any better 
pubHc buildings. The annual allowances of Culpeperas gover- 
nor in 1681, alone, drained the colony of 2,150 pounds sterl- 
ing,* which, with the perquisite of five hundred pounds sterling 
for house rent, reduced to present values, aggregated about 
$50,000. 

Recurring to the Journal of the General Assembly of 1685, 
it contains a resolution of the House of Burgesses px'oviding for 
building a prison, not concurred in by the governor and Coun- 
cil.! A prison was probably erected after the completion of 
the fourth state house, for one was burned in the fire of Octo- 
ber, 1698. X 

The last meeting of the Assembly at " James Citty" was held 
in April, 1699, in some building unknown. At the above ses- 
sion an act was passed for removing the seat of government to 
Williamsburg. In the four succeeding years the college of Wil- 
liam and Mary was used as the state house. In 1705 the cajjitol 
building at Williamsburg was completed. It was occuj^ied un- 
til burned about 1747. The college was again used as a state 
house until the capitol was rebuilt in 1755. By 1779, the centre 
of population having moved westward, Williamsburg was no 
longer well adapted as a point for assembling the legislature. 
For the above reason principally, and also on account of its be- 
ing thought that the place was rendered unsafe by the then ex- 
isting state of war, it was decided by an act of assembly passed 
in the above year to transfer the seat of government to Rich- 
mond, which statute went into effect in 17S0. 

THE TURF AND BRICK FORTS. 

THE earliest fort of the settlers, called by them "James 
Forte," as previously shown, was probably situated on the 
river bank, at the upper extremity of the fourth riiigc. 

From the description of "James Citty," previously alluded to, 
written by the Rev. John Clayton in i6S8,|l about two years 
after his return to England, it appears that during his residence 

* T/ie Present State of Virginia, p. 31, Harlwcll, Cliillon ami Rlair. 

t McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 356. 

X Presetit State 0/ Virginia, p. 25, Hugli Jones, A. M. 

II Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. III. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. " 75 

at "James Citty," from 1684 to 1686, there was in the town an 
old dismantled earth work, quadrangular in plan, "with some- 
thinglike Bastions at the four corners." In a grant to Henry 
Hartwell in 1689,* the western line of his tract is described as 
' ' passing along by ye angular points of ye trench which faceth 
two of ye Eastern Bastions of an old ruined turf fort. " The 
above quotations undoubtedly refer to the same fort. 

The Hartwell tract being accurately located, the approximate 
position of the fort was ascertained. According to Mr. Clay- 
ton's letter, the fort was dismantled before 1684. No mark or 
vestige of it remains above ground. There is apparently no in- 
formation available as to when it was constructed. As the land 
on which it was situated was patented to Captain Ralph Hamor 
in 1624, the time of its construction must have been subsequent 
to that year, or to that of his death, 1626, on the nth of Octo- 
ber of which year his will was probated and his widow, Eliza- 
beth, qualified as administratrix. f 

It is possible that the turf fort was the one referred to by Bev- 
erley, as follows: "The news of this plot (the Birkenhead con- 
spiracy in September, 1663,) being transmitted to King Charles 
the second, his Majesty sent his royal commands to build a fort 
at James town, for security of the governor, and to be a curb 
upon all such traitorous attempts for the future. But the coun- 
try, thinking all danger over, only raised a battery of some small 
pieces of cannon. ";|; 

In the account of the town by Mr. Richard Randolph in 
1837,11 it is stated in substance that someof the walls and mounds 
of the ancient fort still remained, that a few hundred yards to 
the right of the fort stood the building reputed to have been a 
powder magazine, and that a part of the fort had been destroyed 
by the encroachments of the river. 

It appears from what follows that the fort referred to by Ran- 
dolph was the last erected at "James Citty." The site of the 
former "magazine" is shown on the map. 

•*Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VII, p. 701. 

t Transcripts Robinson, MSS., p. 159. 

t History of the Present State of Virginia, p. 56. 

II Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. Ill, pp. 303, 304 



76 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

It is assumed that, in making his observations, Mr. Randolph 
faced the river, the fort being down stream from, or below the 
magazine. If the distance between the two structures had been 
several hundred yards, as given by him, the site of the fort 
would now be in the deep water opposite the Confederate fort of 
1861. This would involve an extensive change of position of 
the deep channel since 1837, which palpably would be impossi- 
ble, for, as has been pointed out, the channel of James river at 
Jamestown Island is very stable, and no marked changes of its 
position or depth occur, even in centuries. It is, therefore, be- 
lieved that Mr. Randolph meant feet, and not yards, or it is 
possible that the word yards is a typographic error. 

The distance between the shore lines of 1837 and 1891, near 
the uppermost of the four jetties marked "a " on map, three 
hundred and twenty feet below the reputed magazine, is found 
approximately by using the average annual rates of abrasion of 
two and four feet, previously determined, to have been one hun- 
dred and ninety feet. The shore of 189 1 was accurately located 
in that year. In 1896 it was cut back about seventy feet to bring 
it to a fair line for receiving protection work. Since 1896 the 
recession of the bank has been very slight at the locality referred 
to. When viewed by Mr. Randolph, therefore, the shore was 
about two hundred and sixty feet further west than at present, 
and some of the mounds of the fort were then standing. At 
from two hundred to three hundred and fifty feet oli" shore, 
where, according to the above deductions, the fort would have 
^tood, are what appear to be masses of masonry submerged 
from one and one-half to two and one-half feet below low water. 
The dedns lies in what would be the extension of the " little 
vale" between the third and fourth ridges, from three hundred 
and fifty to four hundred and fifty feet to the left of the reputed 
magazine, with the observer facing the river, thus agreeing fairly 
well with Mr. Randolph's estimate of distance, amended as 
above suggested. 

From Mr. Clayton's description of "James Citty," before re- 
ferred to, it is learned that the brick fort was crescent shaped, 
that a brick wall formed a part of it, probably one of its faces to 
retain encompassing earthworks, or mounds, as Mr. Randolph 
styles them, and that it was situated at the beginning of the 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 77 

swamp, above the town, where the channel was very near the 
shore. 

According to Mr. Clayton also, on account of being in a vale 
and having its guns pointed down stream, its shot intended for 
an enemy's fleet would have lodged in the bank below, which 
was at a higher elevation than the fort, and from ten to forty 
yards distant. The bank which would have received the shot 
from the fort's guns was the former head of the fourth ridge, 
which formed the eastern boundary of the " little vale." 

In September, 1667, an act of Assembly was passed* for build- 
ing five forts, one of which was to beat " James Citty." Its 
walls were to be of brick, ten feet high, and the part facing the 
river ten feet thick. The fort, according to the above act, was 
to have an armament of eight great guns; according to another 
authority, it was to mount fourteen guns, f The above act un- 
doubtedly refers to the brick fort. The contractors for building 
the fort were Major Theophilus Hone, Colonel William Drum- 
mond, and Colonel Matthew Page. The funds for its construc- 
tion do not appear to have been raised as late as September, 
1672.:}: Between 1672 and 1676 a peremptory order was issued 
by the court requiring the surviving contractors for the fort. 
Hone and Drummond, to forthwith complete its construction, 
and providing that no further payment should be made until the 
work was completed. § 

As has been shown, the channel opposite the site of the for- 
mer turf fort is about twice as far from the shore as it is three 
hundred yards above the tower ruin, or about where the brick 
fort stood. This coincides with Mr. Clayton's statement that 
opposite the turf fort the channel was nearer the middle of the 
river than off the brick fort. || 

From what has preceded it is evident that the fort referred to 
by Mr. Randolph was the brick fort described by Mr. Clayton, 
that it was situated in the extension of the depression between 

* Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, pp. 255-257. 

t McDonald Papers, Vol. V, p. 4. 

% Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, pp. 293, 294. 

I Robinson's Transcripts, General Court Records, 1670-1676, p. 149. 

II Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. III. 



^.ofC. 



78 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

the third and fourth ridges, and that the masonry debris now- 
lying under water ofif the uppermost of the four jetties now- 
marked "a" on chart are most probably parts of its wall, 
which it was proposed to make ten feet high and ten feet thick. 

From Mr. Clayton's allusion to the relative positions of the 
brick and turf forts, with reference to that of the town, " but it 
is the same as if a Fort were built at Chelsea to secure London 
from being taken by shipping," and " There was indeed an old 
Fort of Earth in the town," it is apparent that in 1684 and 1686 
the town, or at least the greater part of it, was below the brick 
fort. This agrees \/ith available information, for in 1694 the 
only buildings known to have been standing on the third ridge 
were the " Country House " and the state house. It is probable 
that the building reputed to have been a magazine was also 
standing and possibly one or two dwelling houses. There are 
no signs of house foundations on the ridges above the third 
ridge. 



^^ TAMES Cilty," in its best days, was little more than a strag- 
I gling hamlet, holding besides a church and a few- unostenta- 
tious public buildings, hardly ever more than a score of 
dwellings, and a larger permanent population than one hundred 
souls. It was the foreshore on which the inrolling waves of im- 
migration, on their way up the " Create River," first broke. Its 
life, a feverish one, whose term was less than a century, terminated 
two centuries ago. Attempts to encourage the growth of the 
town by offering land bounties to those who should erect brick 
dwellings, as well as enactments and re-enactments making it 
the sole port of entry for the colony, failed signally to raise it to 
a place of any proportions, and after being twice lifted from its 
ashes, it succumbed under a third conflagration and was left 
prone. The town must have been held in disfavor, and avoided 
as a place of residence by many of the early colonists, on ac- 
count of a well-earned reputation of being " insalubritious " in 
summer. The period of its life was not propitious lor town 
building, as the principal efforts of tlic colonists were then de- 
voted to agriculture, ]>articularly tobacco raising. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 79 

Few relics of the old town mark its site, but its name is im- 
perishable. Its requiem is unceasing sung in the rhythmic 
surgings of the " King's River." 

APPENDIX. 

AN ABRIDGED DESCRIPTION OF THE METHOD EMPLOYED IN 
LOCATING " THE NEW TOWNE," FROM THE VIRGINIA LAND 
PATENT RECORDS. 

The following patents were used for locating "the New 
Towne:" 

(i) John Pott, " Doctr. of Physicke," for three acres " in the 
new Towne," dated August ii, 1624. 

(2) Same grantee, for 12 acres, including the above three 
acres, dated September 20, 1628. 

(3) John Phips, for 120 acres, "part thereof in James Citye's 
liberties," dated February 23, 1656. This patent includes 12 
acres "formerly granted by patent unto Dr. John Pott." 

(4) John Knowles, for 133 acres, 35 9-10 chains, " part within 
and part without the liberties of the said city," dated May 6, 
1665. 

The tract covered by this patent includes the above 120 acres 
purchased from John Phips; 3 acres 44 37-100 chains, also pur- 
chased from said Phips; and 9 acres 71 53-100 chains, "due for 
transportation for one person." 

(5) William Sherwood, for 308 acres in James City and James 
City Island, dated April 20, 1694. 

The Sherwood tract included 3^^ acres "purchased by him 
the said Wm. Sherwood of John Page Esqr; " i acre (see (9) be- 
low); 133 acres 35 9-10 chains "being heretofore granted by 
patent dated the 6th day of May 1665 to one John Knowles;" 
28^ acres "granted by patent dated the 4th day of October, 
1656, to one John Bauldwin;" and the remainder, "being for- 
merly granted to Richard James by patent dated the 5th day of 
June, 1657." 

(6) Henry Hartwell, for 2 acres, i rood, 24 i-io poles, dated 
April 20, 1689. 

(7) Richard Holder, in "James Citty," for 8 acres, i rood, 
5 poles, dated January 28, 1672. 



80 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

(S) Wm. Edwards, Jr., for 127 poles in James City, dated 
October 15, 1698. 

(9) William Sherwood, for one acre of land '^ '-'^ * "in 
James Citty on which formerly stood the brick house formerly 
called the Country house," etc., dated April 23, 1681. 

The tracts represented by the patents are shown on the ac- 
companying " Plat of the Tracts." They were connected by 
means of their common boundaries, as follows : 

(i) The northern boundary of the Pott tract, (2) line 31-32, 
is also one of the lines of the Phips (3) survey. 

•(2) The line 31-32 is also common to Phips (3) and Knowles 
(4), and the line 31-33 of Knowles is a part of the line 31-27, 
of Pott. 

(3) The lines 4-1 1, ii-ioand 10-9 are common to Knowles 
(4) and Sherwood (5). 

(4) The lines 4-1 1, ii-io and 10-9 are also common to Sher- 
wood (5) and Sherwood (9). 

(5) Lines ii-ioand 10-9 of Hartwell are common to Sher- 
wood (5), Sherwood (9) and Knowles (4), and Hartwell 36-11 
forms part of line 4-1 1 of each of the above tracts, (5) and (9). 

(6) Line 19-20 Hartwell (6) differs i}{°in azimuth from the 
line 19-26 of Holder (7). The length of the line 19-20, how- 
ever, being but 51^2 feet, the above difference of azimuth would 
change the position of the point 20 but one foot, a too insignifi- 
cant difference to be considered in a compass survey. Hart- 
well's patent reads for the course 17-19, " buts on the land now 
or late of holder." It also reads for line 19-20, " thence along 
holder," showing that the above line is a part of Holder's wes- 
tern boundary. 

(7) The azimuth of the line 19-26 of Holder (6) is the same 
as Hne 21-26 of Edwards (8). The length of the above line for 
the Edwards tract, however, is shorter. The south end of the 
above eastern boundary of the Edwards tract (8) is described as 
being "at ye mouth of ye Orchard Run on James River," and 
the same end of the line for the Holder tract is described as be- 
ing "at high water mark on James River side at the mouth of a 
small run entering thereinto." The runs are undoubtctily one 
and the same. 

The patents show that Orchard Run was on the south bank of 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 81 

the island. As there is but one stream entering the river on that 
bank that could be designated a run, it was readily identified 

The descriptions in the patents furnish some other data as to 
the names of owners of adjacent land, which further confirm 
several of the above determinations. 

Several errors were discovered in the survey notes of the 
transcripts of the patents above referred to and, until they were 
located and corrected, it was found to be impracticable to plat 
the tracts. The errors were those of the surveyor and of the 
scrivener who transcribed the patents. They comprise princi- 
pally the reading of the south end of the needle by the sur- 
veyor, and in transcribing, misplacing the decimal point in 
the length of a course given in figures, and entering azimuths 
incorrectly. 

In one of the patents, (Sherwood 9), the azimuth of every 
course of the survey is reversed. The last named tract might 
be omitted from the plat, as it only serves the purpose of con- 
firming the junction of three other tracts, Knowles (4), Sher- 
wood (5) and Hartwell (6), which is well established. 

All of the foregoing tracts being platted, the point 26 was su- 
perposed on the mouth of Orchard Run, previously identified 
and located on a modern map, and the map as made up from 
ancient patents rotated around point 26 until its magnetic merid- 
ian had a western declination of 6^ degrees.* It was then 
found that point i of Sherwood (5) fell on the south side of the 
branch of "Pitch and Tarr Swamp," thus agreeing with the 
description in the patent record for Sherwood (5). Another 
point of Sherwood (5) near its eastern end, omitted from the ac- 
companying plat — as by including it the map would have been 
made too large — falls within thirty-five feet of where the de- 
scription places it, viz., on the edge of a great marsh on Back 
River. 

A causeway across the swamp before referred to, being prob- 

*The magnetic declination at "James Citty" about the middle of the 
seventeenth century was probably six or seven degrees west. There 
are no data prior to 1694 for any better than a rough approximation. 
Six and a half degrees appears to be close enough for the class of sur- 
veys to which it is here applied. . 



82 THE SITE OF OLD "JAMES TOWNE. 

ably the bridge given as a witness mark in the Knowles patent 
(4) being found very near the point indicated by that patent also 
confirms the location of "the New Towne" as exhibited on the 
map. 

The south line of the Pott tract 27-28, (i) and that of Phips 
(3) fix the position and direction of Back Street. The southern 
boundaries of tracts of Hartwell (6), Holder (7) and Edwards 
(8), fix the positions of parts of the southern bank of the island 
for the seventeenth century, which is thereby found to conform 
closely to that of to-day, thus showing that it has not been 
abraded to any extent by the waves. This is as it should be, 
for the part of the island shore immediately below the present 
wharf has not been greatly exposed to wave action. The an- 
cient south shore of the island and the positions of the Pott 
tracts and the Back Street being established, the Ralph Hamor 
tract was platted by its dimensions given in the patent records.* 
Its position was then approximately arrived at by finding by 
trial the place on the chart where the length of the tract would 
fit in between the Back Street and the "highway along the 
banke of the Main River." 

The area of the plat of John Harvey f being given, also its 
northern boundary, Back Street, its eastern boundary "the 
Swamp lying on the East side of the said New Towne," its 
southern boundary, "upon the highway close to the banke of 
the Main river," the approximate position of the tract was ascer- 
tained after several trials. 

From the descriptions of the Harvey and Hamor tracts the 
position of those of George Menefy| and Richard Stephens,)^ 
and also those of the two cross streets, all of which are men- 
tioned in the descriptions of the two first named, were readily 
found, and finally the tract of John Chew,|| all as shown on the 
" Map of lames Citty, Va., 1607-1698." 

N. B. — Lines indicated on the " Plat of the Tracts " by num- 
bers I, 2, 3, 4, II, 10, 9, are part of Sherwood (5) survey. 



* Va. Land Pat. Record, Book I, p. 3. 

t Ibid, Book I, p. 5. % Ibid, Book I, jl 4. 

^ Ibid, Book I, p. i. || Ibid, Book I, p. 7. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 83 

Lines indicated by numbers 9, 10, 11, 4, 5, 37, 33, 31, 32, are 
part of Knowles (4) survey. 

Lines indicated by numbers 28, 34, 35, are part of Phips 
(3) survey. 

The dwellings of Knowles, later Sherwood's, of Col. White, 
later Henry Hartwell's, also that of John Phips, although having 
no connection with the matter of locating the " New Towne, " 
are shown on the plate, on account of being interesting features. 
Their positions were determined from references to them in the 
patents. 

By comparing the " Plat " with the " Map of ' lames Citty'," 
especially the Pott and Holder tracts, the relation of the two 
plates will be apparent. 

" Back Street " appears to have lost its name before 1656. as 
Phips' patent of that year, although following its lines, does not 
refer to it by name. Charlestown's (Boston) " Back Street," 
dating from very early colonial times, survives under its original 
name. 



84 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOVVNE.' 



NOTE. 

The Arnblcr MSS. and^'TJic Site of Old 'James Towne' 1607- 

i6g8r 

By the publication in April, 1904, of the report of the Libra- 
rian of the Congressional Library, for the fiscal year of 1903, 
the author of "The Site of Old 'James Towne' " was apprised of 
the acquisition by the library of a collection of MSS. of which 
he had no previous knowledge, showing the former possessions 
of the Ambler family situated principally at Jamestown or in its 
vicinage. An examination of the papers was made by him to- 
wards the end of April. 

The collection comprises upwards of 140 MSS. and charts, 
consisting of original patents, deeds and leases, also copies of 
other similar documents, certified and uncertified, and copies of 
three wills, all showing the chain of title of the lands as vested 
in different owners up to 1809, and, in one instance, dating back 
to 1649. There is no reference in the papers, however, to grants 
of the tracts which formed the "New Towne" in 1623. A com- 
parison of some of the original patents in the collection with 
their transcripts in the land register's office at Richmond shows 
that the latter, in the main, are correct, and have been properly 
interpreted, thus proving the accuracy of the "Map of 'lames 
Citty,' 1607-1698." As, however, there is no plat of James- 
town among the papers, they would not have saved the labor 
and study expended in preparing the above map, and the "Plat 
of the Tracts," had they been available when the above-men- 
tioned charts were constructed. 

The papers comprising the collection contain evidence con- 
firming the position of the turf fort, and show that it was still 
standing in 1721. They also confirm other important features 
of the map. 

Among the collection are several skeleton charts of surveys, 
two of which relate to Jamestown. One, made in 1680, shows 
that the western shore line of the island in the 17th century 
above the "Pitch and Tarr Swamp" was about as shown on the 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 85 

author's map. The agreement of the above chart with the 
"Map of 'lames Citty,' " in this respect, indirectly comfirms the 
position given on the map of the part of the western shore of the 
island below the upper branch of the swamp. This evidence 
gready strengthens the view expressed in the monograph as to 
the site of the landing-place at Jamestown of the first band of 
settlers. It is evident from the other skeleton chart that the 
Sherwood tracts of 1681 and 1694 were situated with regard to 
each other and the branch of Pitch and Tar Swamp, as drawn on 
the "Map of 'lames Citty,' Va., 1607-1698," and the " Plat of 
Tracts." These coincidences corroborate the position of the 
Pott tract as given in the map, and indirectly show the general 
correctness of the part of the map for the east end of the town. 

A reference in a lease for land on the second ridge in 1693 con- 
firms the location of the third and fourth state houses on the 
third ridge, as established from other data. No light, however, 
is thrown on the location of the church by the Ambler papers. 

It is learned from William Sherwood's will that the epitaph on 
his tombstone is worded in accordance with his instructions to 
his principal legatee. Sir Jeffrey Jeffreys, Knt. , of London. 

Interesting information is supplied by the Ambler papers re- 
garding the 3>^-acre tract of "Col. Jno. Page of 1681," shown 
on the "Plat of the Tracts." The site of this tract on the "Map 
of 'lames Citty' " is covered by Sir Francis Wyatt's lot, and 
the lot attributed to Captain Roger Smith. 

The Page tract included the original grant from Harvey to 
Richard Kemp, Esq., in 1639, who conveyed it to Wyatt. 
Wyatt, through his agent, Wm. Pierce, sold to Sir Wm. Berk- 
eley, who sold it to Walter Chiles, whose widow — afterwards 
Mrs. Susan Waddinge — sold to Colonel John Page, who con- 
veyed it to Wni. Sherwood in 1681. The concluding sentence 
in the description of the survey of the tract made for Sherwood 
in 1682 reads: "Including ye Ruins Sq' Kemps Old Brick 
House." The above house was the first brick house built at 
Jamestown. It was 16 by 24 feet in plan and was referred to by 
Gov. Harvey in 1639, with considerable pride, as being the fair- 
est that ever was known to the country for substance and impor- 
tance. By the locating of the Page tract, therefore, the site of 
the first brick dwelling house in Virginia becomes approximately 



86 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

known. The evidence, though slight, shows that the house was 
near the southwest corner of the Page tract. 

Ralph Worniley, while secretary of state, resided on the Page 
tract, on or very near the Kemp grant. 



NOV 7 ^904 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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